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Determinants of Body Weight: Metabolism and the Homeostatic System

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Food Addiction, Obesity, and Disorders of Overeating

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Abstract

Body weight is controlled by numerous factors including energy expenditure, thermogenesis, adipocyte biology, and the amount and type of food consumed. The amount and type of food consumed depends on two different motivational systems. The first is the system that is responsible for appetitive drive, which is controlled by homeostatic mechanisms. This system ensures that a person gets enough calories to survive and involves communication between multiple organs in the body, including the brain, gut, endocrine system, and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. The second system is driven by hedonic mechanisms, which are responsible for driving the pleasure and reward aspects of eating. This is also the system that controls use of substances of abuse and pursuit of natural rewards like sex and nurturing (Kinasz KR, Ross DA, Cooper JJ, Biol Psychiatry. 81:e73-e5, 2017). Systems that moderate inhibitory or cognitive control and emotion regulation also regulate the hedonic eating system and are tightly linked with it. In this chapter, we will review in detail the biology of the former system, only – e.g., that of the homeostatic control system – since more detail on the neurobiology of the latter systems will be provided in subsequent chapters (e.g., Chaps. 7–9).

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  1. Mind Research Network, Albuquerque, NM, USA

    Claire E. Wilcox

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  1. Claire E. Wilcox
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Correspondence to Claire E. Wilcox .

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Wilcox, C.E. (2021). Determinants of Body Weight: Metabolism and the Homeostatic System. In: Food Addiction, Obesity, and Disorders of Overeating. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83078-6_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83078-6_1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-83078-6

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