Munchies

Just found out why I am hungry after working on the computer preparing articles and sending e-mails, generally doing brain work.
Researchers have found that " You just spent half an hour writing a presentation for work and you feel hungry?
Or, you've been reading reports for an hour and crave a great big snack?
You help the kids do their math homework with a bag of chips at your side-thank goodness I never buy chips- at the most once a year.
It seems that intellectual work triggers a desire to eat even though few calories have been burned, say researchers at Quebec's University of Laval, who speculate that this is contributing to the nation's obesity problems.
What are they suggesting the earlier generations did not engage in intellectual activity?
As reported in the Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine, the medical research team headed by Dr. Angelo Tremblay found that students offered a buffet after three different activities, gorged when they had done heavy mental work.
Students were given three activities: resting, summarizing texts and writing tests. The intellectual activities used only three more calories than resting, the study says, but the students consumed 203 and 253 more calories following the two intellectual activities.
Blood tests before, during and after the mental activities showed much bigger fluctuations in glucose than resting (possibly due to stress), leading researchers to believe people were spontaneously trying to restore the glucose balance by eating.
Since intellectual activity is usually sedentary, researcher say the post-work munchies are just compounding weight problems.
This certainly suggests that we need to be careful about thinking too much!