You can fight obesity by looking at commercials of healthy foods – Know how!

New Delhi: According to a new study, scientists claim that looking at billboards or commercials that aim at healthy food options can pull you out of the obsession with junk food.

This is a useful method which could help in countering obesity and related diseases.

Researchers from the University of Sydney used lab rats to conduct a series of experiments replete with oreos, pringles, jelly snakes and chow.

They showed that environments where tasty high-fat and high-sugar treats were routinely consumed induced habitual control: animals lost the ability to make volitional nutritional choices based on the current value of food.

However, the study also showed that rats could easily be brought out of this state.

For people, habitual behaviour means that eating patterns are not necessarily dictated by weight regulation and health concerns, but also by external food cues that shape and perpetuate certain eating habits: a world where McDonalds billboards loom large at every corner, luring you in with the promise of cheap, high-fat and high-sugar food.

The researchers suggest using simple interventions, such as reminders of how unhealthy certain foods are interrupting the automatic processing of junk-food cues.

(With PTI inputs)