Obesity causes disruptions in brain-body communication, including impaired leptin signaling leading to a continuous signal to eat.

“Obesity causes all sorts of shifts in the dialogue between the brain and body. Some of which you'll recognize from earlier in the discussion, for instance, leptin signaling is disrupted. So, the fat there's lots of body fat, but even though that body fat is secreting, this hormone leptin in that signal should shut down the desire to eat. The receptors to leptin in the brain are totally screwed up. And so the signal to eat is there, but the signal to stop eating is not there.”