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A study in Canada has shown that too much thinking can lead to overeating.

At Universite Laval in Quebec City, researchers found that the stress of thinking showed a raise in calorie intake, thereby potentially causing obesity.

For the study, researchers asked 14 students to eat at a buffet after completing three easy tasks requiring very little energy; sitting and relaxing, reading and summarizing a text, and doing memory tests on a computer.

They found that students reading and summerizing a text consumed 203 extra calories, while those completing the memory tests via computer ate 253 extra calories.

Blood samples were taken before, during and after the three tasks and showed that during the computer-based tests their glucose and insulin levels were high.

The leader of the study, Jean-Philippe Chaput, said that glucose serves as fuel for the brain during any mental or intellectual work.

"Caloric overcompensation following intellectual work, combined with the fact that we are less physically active when doing intellectual tasks, could contribute to the obesity epidemic currently observed in industrialized countries,'' he said.

Chaput also warns that obesity could become very common in the future as more and more people get involved in intellectual work.

For me, I mostly eat more when I'm sitting around doing absolutely nothing. Some may call it 'boredom eating'. The next time you are working on something requiring a lot of thought, take note as to whether or not you are eating more while you complete your work.

Source: India Times