Fatty people seem to have a good nose for food. A new study has revealed that fatty people find food more appealing because they have a more intense sense of smell — the heavier that someone is the more sensitive they are to the smell of food.
According to researchers, this might make the food more appetising to them and so encourage them to eat more.
Lead researcher Dr Lorenzo Stafford of the University of Portsmouth said that there was a definite correlation but as yet he did not know why, the Daily Telegraph reported.
“t could be speculated that for those with a propensity to gain weight, their higher sense of smell for food-related odours might actually play a more active role in food intake. For a certain group of people it could be sustaining food intake by making it more appetising. Hopefully this research will stimulate more work in this area with the potential to help those who struggle with their weight and those who treat people with weight problems,” he said.
The research, published in the Chemical Senses journal, was launched to study if being hungry or full had an impact on people’s ability to distinguish smells.
The researchers found that contrary to popular belief people had a heightened sense of smell to food odours after eating than before.
The effect was the opposite for non-food related smells. When the results were analysed further, they found that compared to those with a low BMI, people with higher BMI had a greater sensitivity to the smell of food.
The researchers ran two separate experiments on a total of 64 men and women aged between 18 and 49. Participants were tested for their sensitivity to food smells by using an odour of mixed cooking herbs and decreasing its potency and making at each point each person became unable to smell it. They did the same with a non-food smell namely an alcohol-related smell.
—PTI