Research
Adherence
Higher BMI is associated with greater activation in the anterior insula/frontal operculum and lateral OFC during initial orientation to appetizing food cues, and greater activation in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) and superior parietal lobe during orientation to unappetizing food cues.
Your brain's response to food cues, whether appetizing or unappetizing, is stronger if you have a higher BMI. This heightened neural activity in attention and reward centers suggests that food cues are more salient and motivating for you, making it harder to ignore them.
GoodSupportsMEDIUM confidence
BMI correlated positively with activation in brain regions related to attention and food reward, including the anterior insula/frontal operculum, lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC), and superior parietal lobe, during initial orientation to food cues.
Why this rating
Robust fMRI methodology with FDR correction, but cross-sectional design limits causal inference.
Source
Attentional Bias to Food Images Associated With Elevated Weight and Future Weight Gain: An fMRI Study
Sonja Yokum et al. · Obesity · 2011
DOI 10.1038/oby.2011.168
cohort · n=35Cited 406×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Elevated activation in the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) during initial orientation to appetizing food cues predicts future increases in BMI over a 1-year period.Good
- Higher BMI is associated with faster behavioral response times (attentional bias) to both appetizing and unappetizing food images, but not to neutral water images.Good
Related findings · Adherence
- Regular physical activity (at least 150 minutes/week of moderate-intensity) reduces all-cause and cardiovascular mortality by 20-30% and lowers the risk of type 2 diabetes by 25-35%.Strong
- Increasing physical activity from a sedentary lifestyle to an active one in middle adulthood significantly reduces the risk of coronary events compared to remaining sedentary.Strong
- Resistance exercise is the only intervention capable of consistently restoring muscle function and strength in sarcopenia, partially overcoming age-related anabolic resistance.Strong
This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →