According to new research by the University of Birmingham and the University of Amsterdam, successful weight successful weight loss maintainers have different behavioural and physiological responses to food than people with obesity and their lean counterparts.
In the study, Leonie Balter from the University of Birmingham’s School of Psychology in the UK and her colleagues looked at saliva production and heart rate following exposure to pizza in different weight groups (average age 29.5 years).
The team, from Suzanne Higgs’ Eating Behaviour Research Group, compared the responses of three groups - successful weight-loss maintainers who previously had obesity (20 participants), individuals with current obesity (25), and never-overweight lean individuals (20) - and found that individuals with obesity had a heightened salivation and heart rate response.