According to a recent study, thinking too much can make you fat. Researchers found that the stress of over thinking can make people seek out more calories and they believe that the details of their discovery could explain the current obesity epidemic.

A research team from the University Laval in Quebec, Canada, who published their research in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, measured the spontaneous food intake of 14 students after each of three tasks. The first task was to relax in a sitting position, the second task was reading and summarising a test and the third task was completing a series of memory, attention and vigilance tests on a computer. After 45 minutes of each task all the students were invited to eat as much as they wanted from a buffet. The researchers had previously discovered that each session of intellectual work only requires three more calories than the rest period. However, despite the low energy cost of mental work the students spontaneously consumed 203 more calories after summarising a test and 253 more calories after computer tests. This suggests a 23.6 percent increase and 29.4 percent increase respectively compared to the rest session. Blood tests taken before, during and after each task revealed that mental work causes bigger fluctuations in glucose and insulin levels than periods of rest.

 

The researchers believe that increased calorie consumption following mental work combined with the fact that people are less physically active when they are doing intellectual tasks could be contributing to the obesity epidemic currently observed in industrialised countries where a large proportion of the working population are desk bound.

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