Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2018 Jun;7(2):122-129.
doi: 10.1007/s13679-018-0303-1.

Food Cues and Obesity: Overpowering Hormones and Energy Balance Regulation

Renata Belfort-DeAguiar  1 , Dongju Seo  2
Affiliations
Review

Food Cues and Obesity: Overpowering Hormones and Energy Balance Regulation

Renata Belfort-DeAguiar et al. Curr Obes Rep. 2018 Jun.

Abstract

Purpose of review: In the modern obesogenic environment, food cues play a crucial role in the development of obesity by disrupting hormone and energy balance mechanisms. Thus, it is critical to understand the neurobiology of feeding behaviors and obesity in the context of ubiquitous food cues. The current paper reviews the physiology of feeding, hormonal regulation of energy balance, and food cue responses and discusses their contributions to obesity.

Recent findings: Food cues have strong impact on human physiology. Obese individuals have altered food cue-elicited responses in the brain and periphery, overpowering hormone and energy balance regulation. Disrupted homeostasis during food cue exposure leads to continued food intake, unsuccessful weight management, and poor treatment outcomes, which further contributes to obesity epidemic. Findings from the review emphasize the crucial role of food cues in obesity epidemic, which necessitates multidimensional approaches to the prevention and treatment of obesity, including psychosocial interventions to reduce food cue reactivity, along with conventional treatment.

Keywords: Brain activity hormone; Energy balance; Food cues; Obesity.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

Renata D. Belfort-DeAguiar and Dongju Seo declare they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Prevalence of Overweight and Obesity (BMI >25), adapted from CDC: “Trends in overweight, obesity, and extreme obesity aged 20–74 years: United States, 1960–1962 through 2009–2010”. Sources: National Center for Health Statistics, National Health Examination Survey and National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. CD F, MD C, CL O. Prevalence of overweight, obesity, and extreme obesity among adults: United States, trends 1960–1962 through 2009–2010. NCHS Health E-Stat. 2014
    1. Mitchell NS, Catenacci VA, Wyatt HR, Hill JO. Obesity: overview of an epidemic. Psychiatr Clin North Am. 2011;34(4):717–32. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Swinburn B, Sacks G, Ravussin E. Increased food energy supply is more than sufficient to explain the US epidemic of obesity. Am J Clin Nutr. 2009;90(6):1453–6. - PubMed
    1. Swinburn BA, Sacks G, Hall KD, McPherson K, Finegood DT, Moodie ML, et al. The global obesity pandemic: shaped by global drivers and local environments. Lancet. 2011;378(9793):804–14. - PubMed
    1. Yang W, Kelly T, He J. Genetic epidemiology of obesity. Epidemiol Rev. 2007;29:49–61. - PubMed

MeSH terms