Food Preferences Linked to Weight

 

Comment:

Diets between obese and non-obese patients differ with growing evidence that obesity can impact on how food tastes, thus further driving different dietary preferences. 

Research has found that obese people have a heightened taste for sweet, savoury and fatty foods and this is seen in their increased consumption. Other research found that obese people needed higher savoury  monosodium glutamate concentrations before they could detect the taste and also preferred the higher concentrations. 

Differences in dietary preferences have also been noticed in obese people who have undergone bariatric surgery. In these cases the loss of weight means that sweet and fatty food are no longer as preferable. 

Your weight can thus lock you into certain food preferences which is why obese people continue to eat certain foods and why it is easier for people who have undergone baratric surgery to keep up a healthier diet. 

 

Source: http://www.nutrition-communications.co.uk/news_detail.php?news_id=366

Full Research: Pepino et al (2010) Obesity 18: 959-965; Chevrot et al (2014) The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 99: 975-983; Miras & Le Roux (2010) Current Opinion in Gastroenterology 26: 140-145.