The Correlation Between Body Mass and Brain Function

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Recommended: Short and long term effects of obesity

There is a strong correlation between obesity and brain performance.Being overweight or obese causes poor brain performance. When there is an excess of cholesterol in the human body, there will be delays in motor skills, memory, and constant exhaustion. Simply being overweight or obese causes all these negative effects. Being overweight or obesemeans weight numbers are greater than what is considered healthy. In other words,the higher the weight number, the higher the chance of catching a disease.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention categorizes overweight and obese people by applying the height and weight of a person to evaluate the Body Mass Index (BMI). For example, if a person's height is 5'9", weighs 124 lbs and their BMI is below 18.5, they are considered underweight. If a person with the same height (5'9) weighs 169 to 202 lbs and their BMI is 25.0 to 29.9, they are considered overweight. Lastly, an adult who is 5'9" and weighs 203 lbs or more and their BMI is higher than 30, is considered obese.
People might think that our brains have no association with body fat and that our body composition is not applicable to the brain. However, research has disproved this. A study conducted by University of California, Los Angeles showed that obese people have on average 8% less brain tissue and overweight people have 4% less brain tissuecompared to thinpeople. In addition,thin peopleare much less likely to get Alzheimer's disease than overweight people (Gunstad, J.2008).Therefore, being overweight affects our brain functions negatively.
Furthermore, scientists showed that overweight people have a higher probability of Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an age associated and inevitable brain...

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..., Robert h., Paul Ronald A., Cohen David f., Tate, Mary Beth Spitznagel, Stuart Grieve, Evian Gordon, "Relationship between body mass index and brain volume in healthy adults", International Journal of Neuroscience, 118:1582–1593, 2008.
Grady, D. (2004, 07 06). Fat; the secret life of a potent cell. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/06/science/fat-the-secret-life- of-a-potent-cell.html?
National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2003).Alzheimer’s d i s e a s e. (pp. 7-9). Retrieved from http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps51508-1/2003_progress_report_on_ad.pdf
Small, G. (2009, December 15). A fat hormone is linked to alzheimer's disease. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2009/12/leptin-alzheimers-obesity- dementia.html

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