Now, there's another reason to lose weight. As to a new research in the University of Cambridge, the more overweight a person is, the bigger the possibility that he would also have poorer episodic memory -- which is the ability of a person to recall past experiences in life.
According to the research conducted by experts from the Department of Psychology at Cambridge which was published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, the higher the body mass index (BMI), the poorer the participants perform on a test regarding episodic memory.
"We know that to some extent hunger and satiety are driven by the balance of hormones in our bodies and brains, but psychological factors also play an important role," said author Dr Lucy Cheke. She also added that most of the time people "tend to eat more when distracted by television or working, and perhaps to comfort eat."
To complete the research, 50 participants were tested with ages between 18 and 35. The participants' weight also ranges between 18 and 51: 20 people were healthy weighing 18 to 25; thus, about 30 overweight people weighing 25 to 30, as reported by Express.
To test their episodic memory, participants were requested to hide several items around complex scenarios for almost two days. After that, they were asked questions like what were the things they have hidden, the exact place where they have hidden it and when they were hidden.
Experts cleared that their study doesn't necessarily state people, who are overweight, are more forgetful than the others, as stated by Value Walk. "But if these results are generalizable to memory in everyday life, then it could be that overweight people are less able to vividly relive details of past events," Cheke said. "Research on the role of memory in eating suggests that this might impair their ability to use memory to help regulate consumption."
