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Study Reveals How to Train Your Brain to Love Healthy Food

Study Reveals How to Train Your Brain to Love Healthy Food

by Mireille Kilgour

Eating healthy is one of those things that's easier said than done. For nutritionists, encouraging people to go with the side of salad over the side of chips has been a tough challenge.

The reason for this is that despite understanding that certain foods are bad for us, our brains are still susceptible to a flutter of excitement when spying a cupcake or slice of caramel tart. Our brain's reward system has a way of 'lighting up', of doing a little dopamine dance that's specifically reserved for naughty foods. How exactly does a nutritionist push a person towards healthy food when the only thing that excites the brain is the sight of a burger stuffed with bacon?

What happens to the brain?

We've all had that moment when we spot the dessert cart in a restaurant or we enter a cafe and spy a delicious-looking cheese cake in the fridge. It's a moment of sheer joy, anticipation and excitement and you can almost feel yourself salivating. While you may not literally be drooling, your brains sparkly anticipatory reward system has already been triggered and is pushing us towards ordering a gigantic slice.

We've also all more than likely had that moment when a bowl of brussel sprouts is served up at the dinner table. Despite the bowl offering up some of the most nutritional food available, our brain simply shrugs disinterestedly and dismisses it. Brussel sprouts may help lower your cholesterol, be an excellent source of vitamin C, E and A and help with digestion resulting in weight loss, but they cannot offer the excitement the brain gets when spying something fatty.

What new research suggests

The good news is that according to recent research, there may be a way to train the brain to like healthy foods – to switch the sizzle of excitement over to the brussel sprout instead of the cheesecake. The co-author of a new study, Susan B. Roberts suggests that it's not our wiring that makes us like certain foods, it's conditioning in response to our eating habits. If this is true, then conditioning the brain to get excited over greens is achievable.

The new research, published in the journal Nutrition and Diabetics, is based on a study performed by researchers at Tufts University and Massachusetts General Hospital. The study monitored the reward system part of the brain in 13 obese participants over six months as a way to determine whether or not we can retain our brain's response to healthy foods. Eight of the participants were put on a new weight-loss program, while the other five could eat as they pleased.

Before the six-month program began, each of the participants had their brains scanned. As each brain was scanned, the participants were shown a series of pictures and asked to rate the desirability of food items such as french fries, fried chicken, sweet potato and grilled chicken.

At the end of the program, participants once again underwent the same scanning process. What it showed is that those under the new weight-loss program saw a shift in their brain sparkles. Not only was the excitement reduced when spotting "fun foods", such as fries, the excitement increased when looking at healthier foods, such as vegetables.

While the study featured only a small sample size, the results suggest that treating obesity is not an impossible task. For health experts, that's welcome news.

The team behind the study recommend creating a diet plan and sticking to it for a period of at least six months. You should then be able to reverse the addictive power of unhealthy food and increase your preference towards healthy foods. The reward centre part of your brain will become more sensitive to low-calorie foods, indicating an increased reward when eaten. With this new switch in dopamine triggers, it'll be a whole lot easier to be making healthy food choices.

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Mireille Kilgour

Mireille Kilgour has been an entrepreneur for 35 years in the hospitality sector. French born, she has been an accomplished business owner and operator for a number of Sydney venues. Leading the industry with high profile institutions such as Lamrock Café Bondi, she has endless passion for the industry, and now has the pleasure of supporting restaurants to fill their tables with the new Good Food Gift Card program.