Observing changes over 3 months, the team noticed the rats on the junk food diet became obese, whereas the group that ate a normal, unprocessed diet did not.Well, both, actually. Low orexin levels cause both. And sugar lowers orexin production.
These results are hardly surprising, but when the researchers gave the rats a task of pressing a lever in order to receive a reward of food or water, they found that rats on the junk food diet took much longer breaks than the lean rats. In a 30-minute session, the obese rats took breaks nearly twice as long as the lean ones.
Lead researcher Aaron Blaisdell says their findings suggest that lethargy may arise from consuming a junk food diet.
"Overweight people often get stigmatized as lazy and lacking discipline. We interpret our results as suggesting that the idea commonly portrayed in the media that people become fat because they are lazy is wrong. Our data suggest that diet-induced obesity is a cause, rather than an effect, of laziness."
He adds that either "the highly processed diet causes fatigue or the diet causes obesity, which causes fatigue."
This is really a groundbreaking study. How freaking pathetic is that?
