“Fat, Dumb, and Happy;” a movie, an idiom, or the result of human evolution in the 21st century? There are a range of body types, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but being fat isn’t just bad for your physical well-being; it’s bad for your brain. High blood pressure and inflammation caused by obesity irritate the neural network, clogging up thought pathways similar to the way other bodily functions get clogged up by obesity.
Being obese makes you four times more likely to develop dementia, according to a 2011 study in the journal Neurology. Researchers tracked 6,500 people over the age of 65 and found a link between obesity and dementia. Obesity-induced inflammation destroys your brain’s circuitry. All the tissues and organs in your body depend on blood flowing freely, and your brain is extra-sensitive to it.
Another study analyzed 35,000 neuroimaging scans from 18,000 people between the ages of 18 and 94 across varying body mass index (BMI) categories. In every brain region, blood flow and brain activity decreased linearly as BMI increased. In other words, the fatter you get, the dumber you get.
“A fat stomach never breeds fine thoughts.” ~ St. Jerome
A Lifestyle Disease
The understanding of Alzheimer’s has changed dramatically in the last decade, with the realization that it’s not an inevitable consequence of aging; it’s a lifestyle disease, like type 2 diabetes and coronary artery disease. Obesity is a common risk factor for numerous diseases. Our brains are extremely sensitive to the devastating metabolic effects of being fat. Even being mildly overweight compromises blood supply to the brain. Arteries in obese people are narrower and become less responsive to dilation signals, compromising blood supply.
Compromised blood supply impairs brain function, making it difficult to concentrate and pay attention. It shrinks the brain and promotes Alzheimer’s. Folks with a high BMI have significant grey matter atrophy. Brains naturally shrink with age, but a recent study found that young adults with a high BMI show brain volumes equivalent to those of people 12 years older than them. Being chronically obese prematurely aged their brains by a dozen years.
Persistently high BMI causes adverse changes to the brain, indicative of accelerated aging and increased risk for cognitive decline, and the brains of chronically obese young adults are particularly at risk. Presently, the rate of obesity in the United States is very high, and the numbers are rising. Worse yet, obesity rates for children are getting higher earlier, which correlates to the dumbing down of our society.
It’s an Epidemic
“The number of kids affected by obesity has tripled since 1980, and this can be traced in large part to lack of exercise and a healthy diet.” ~ Virginia Foxx
“Body Positivity” advocates and fat activists can’t talk their way out of it; if you’re obese, you’re causing premature aging to your brain and increasing your risk of developing cognitive decline and dementia. And the earlier in life you start becoming obese, the more harm you’re inflicting on your brain. Visceral fat is the most dangerous type for brain health (and many other conditions). That’s the fat that builds up around your organs and shows up in the mirror as a big spare tire around your waist (beer belly).
There is a long list of health conditions associated with Obesity. High Blood Pressure (Stroke), Coronary Artery Disease, Heart Failure, Metabolic Syndrome, Sleep Apnea, Asthma, and Fatty Liver Disease are a few of the more common conditions. Now, we can add cognitive dysfunction (dumbness) to the list. Exercise and diet are effective medicines for all of these lifestyle diseases. You have the only mind and body you will ever get; there are no Mulligans in the game of Life!