Exercise Increases Satiety, Improves Diet

Consuming a healthy diet and getting ample amounts of exercise increases satiety and helps suppress the brain’s drive to overeat, according to a study published in the journal Obesity Review. Understanding the interaction between exercise and a healthy diet could improve preventative and therapeutic measures against obesity by strengthening current approaches and treatments.

Researchers from Harvard University investigated the neurocognitive groundwork of eating behavior and the impact of physical activity on cognition and the brain. Data from epidemiological studies suggest tendencies toward a healthy diet and the right amount of physical exercise often come hand in hand, and an increase in physical activity is usually linked to a parallel improvement in diet quality.

They found exercise increases sensitivity to physiological signs of fullness. This not only means that appetite can be controlled better, but it also modifies hedonic responses to food stimuli. They noted “physical exercise seems to encourage a healthy diet. In fact, when exercise is added to a weight-loss diet, treatment of obesity is more successful and the diet is adhered to in the long run."

The researchers support the concept that “regular exercise improves output in tests that measure the state of the brain's executive functions and increases the amount of grey matter and prefrontal connections."

The researchers concluded “in time, exercise produces a potentiating effect of executive functions including the ability for inhibitory control, which can help us to resist the many temptations that we are faced with everyday in a society where food, especially hyper-caloric food, is more and more omnipresent."

Sources:

·                                 EurekAlert: Exercise helps us to eat a healthy diet