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A new study showed that physical inactivity in obese mice makes it even hard for them to have the motivation to move.
Most of us have a New Year’s resolution that includes working out, but for some of us, it is too hard to stick to. This is because of obesity. A new study showed that physical inactivity in obese mice makes it even hard for them to have the motivation to move.
This can apply to humans too. This is because once you stopped working out and you start gaining weight it is really hard to start working out and especially to continue with your workout schedule.
The fact that people or animals are physically inactive is concerning because it makes them gain even more weight. This is just like a circle, once you stopped working out you start to gain weight and then if you are still inactive you gain more weight. This becomes a habit and you can’t get out of this circle.
This new report tested this theory on obese mice. The researchers noticed that physical inactivity in mice was tied to less motivation to move. The findings of this study were published in Cell Metabolism on December 29.
“There’s a common belief that obese animals don’t move as much because carrying extra body weight is physically disabling. But our findings suggest that assumption doesn’t explain the whole story,” mentioned the senior author of the study Alexxai V. Kravitz.
Kravitz started studying about obesity despite the fact that he is specialized in studying Parkinson’s disease. He also observed that there might be a link between obese mice and mice with Parkinson’s.
After he found out this link he theorized that obese animals are inactive because they have a dysfunction in the dopamine systems. This means that it is not all about the weight, out dopamine system might be the one that causes physical inactivity.
The researchers mentioned that it is not all about willpower because some obese people or animals can have a dysfunction that makes them remain inactive. If they have this dysfunction they will probably have no motivation to move. The researchers mentioned that they need to make more studies on this topic so that they can find a real link between physical inactivity and a dysfunction in the dopamine system.
Image source: Wikipedia
