When you say someone "claims" something, what you're really saying is, "someone said something and you have reason to doubt it."

So, Caroline Scott-Thomas, a writer for the Nutra Ingredients website, is the skeptic when she writes...

Scientists claim to have found a correlation between weight loss maintenance and brain activity when people see food, which could lead to new treatments to help people achieve long-term weight loss.

I'm likely to pick up on a nuance like that because, in addition to having been an editor for 30 years, my bias is in the other direction — of course they've found that evidence. Of course biological factors contribute to whether someone is a problem eater — careless, or perhaps sometimes uses food to deal with an emotional upset — or is a food addict.

You may have heard me say before, but I'm a food addict. I am not normal around food. I have wanted more than my peers for as long as I can remember. My thinking used to be dominated by food — how I could get more, how I could avoid being noticed while getting more, what I would eat when I got the chance, etc. I know that this is not how most people act, but I also know that I'm not the only weirdo, either. 

I don't know why I turned out this way — was I born with it, and if so, why weren't my brother and sister? Was it because I had the biological predisposition, but then was pushed over the line by being a middle child, or 'cause I breast-fed, or not breast-fed enough, or whatever? 

Don't know, don't care.

While I grant that the "why" is useful information, it's doesn't nearly measure up to the fact itself, which is that, unattended by support and diligence, I will abuse food, or rather, I will abuse myself with food.

Partly because I can be a pigheaded know-it-all and partly because I have lived in a society that thinks that obesity arises solely from weak and failed personality, I stayed on the outskirts of these ideas for years even after being introduced to them. Millions of Americans — tens of millions, probably — have yet to be exposed to them, never mind to have sought out the changes that would follow from accepting them.

the strongest argument I can make for these ideas is that I'm living a great life as a result of accepting them. Thin-ish, a runner (-ish), with a range of stable relationships. Before, I was never anything like thin — I topped 360 at my highest depth, I never ewanted to be a runner, and I didn't even know that I could have the relationships, including a loving wife and a baby on the way, that I have.

I'm guessing Caroline can't relate. Which is fine — she's in the mainstream of nonenlightenment on this one. Regardless, check out the clip. It has quotes from the study author, and a full citation if you want to read the study for yourself.