A new study suggests that people who are overweight tend to be less intelligent than those who are not.

According to the study, people who are overweight have less grey and white matter in key parts of the brain, meaning their brain develops an “altered reward processing,” effectively meaning they lack the ability to control their eating.

The results were extracted from “very thorough” brain scans of 32 people from Baltimore, equal numbers of men and women, using BMI (Body Mass Index) and body fat percentages in order to analyse the results.

Outlining the objectives of the study, the authors said “body composition itself might somehow affect the neural systems that underlie cognition, motivation, self-control and salience processing, which would in turn affect one’s ability to make better lifestyle choices, forgoing immediate and/or highly salient rewards for the sake of longer-term health and wellness goals.”

The findings will undoubtedly enrage weight loss and fat acceptance campaigners, who have long argued that being overweight is merely a lifestyle choice that should not be stigmatised as unhealthy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kj5YNBPKzg

Others argue that being overweight is a choice that can be resolved by simply eating less and exercising more, and that fat shaming is an effective means of combating the health issue.

Approximately 36% of Americans are now considered obese.

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