TLDR: Downvotes don't mean anything. Intellectual replies do.  Cool, lets take a look.  Obese toddlers have dramatically lowered IQ. Obese toddlers have dramatically lowered IQ 2. Obesity lowers children's IQ.  Nope. In a population-representantive birth cohort study of 1037 children, it was found that cohort members who became obese had a low IQ, as expected. But, contrary to what your study said, cohort members didn't exhibit a decline in IQ from becoming obese, they instead had a lower IQ since childhood. There is no evidence of obesity contributing to a decline in IQ, even in obese individuals and those on the verge of metabolic syndrome. Strike 1.  Obese mothers give birth to less intelligent children.  In fact, the researchers saw a three-point drop in reading scores and a two-point reduction in math scores—around a 3 percent difference—in tests taken between the ages of five and seven.   2 to 3 points? 3 percent difference? That's hardly significant.    Though the score differences seem small, Tanda noted that these effects of prepregnancy obesity were equivalent to a seven-year decrease in the mothers' education and significantly lower family income, two other known risk factors that negatively affect childhood cognitive function.   Guess what. The differences are small, AND low SES and education are both correlated, along with obesity. There is a strong relationship between parental years of education and childhood obesity. Since the mother's IQ is the most important predictor of a child's IQ (will provide citation below)*, that passes on to the child as well. (BMI is also 80 percent heritable, which I will provide a citation for as well) **. So because of those factors involving the mother and child, that is what accounts for it. Not the environmental factors you're bringing up. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0079200   * http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3355836/  ** (This is a great one. In a meta-analysis of twin and family studies, including all types of twin studies you can think of, which had a sample of 140,525 people, heritability of BMI was found to be between .75 and .82. Both extremely high correlations.) Strike 2.  Overweight parents are more likely to fail.  What kind of source is this? Are you serious? All traced back to low IQ people are more likely to be obese or overweight, with heritability of BMI being .8, you can see how low IQ is the cause of both of those things. Which IQ is largely genetic.  Obese, diabetic mothers are 4 times more likely to have autistic children. Paternal obesity increases the risk of autism in children.  Your first good links. What do you think the cause of that could be? Do you think that the cause is due to less blood flow getting to the baby prenatally in the brain? This is the first I heard of this. I'll look into it later.  Obesity increased the risk of dementia by 60%.  “We can't definitively say whether the relationship is causal or not because the studies were all observational (rather than randomized trials) and therefore there always remains the possibility that the relationship is confounded,” Huxley said.   Give me definite information, thanks. Strike 3.  Obesity linked to fluid intelligence reduction.  Other way around pal. Low IQ is linked to obesity. I have cited this and will cite more at the end of this post. Strike 4.  Junk food linked to memory loss.  Right I heard about a study a few months ago actually like this. Rats were fed high fat diets and they noticed that the brain microglia actually started to eat neuronal pathways actually leading to a decrease in cognitive ability. But they said that returning to a new diet will stop its effects. Researchers say the negative cognitive effects are reversible, but I already gave the cite about obesity not being linked to decreased IQ.  5 ways obesity affects the brain.  Obesity does cause food addiction, I agree. I always link to the MRI scan showing the control, obese and coaine user's brain. Interesting to see that sugar is just as addictive as cocaine. Obesity doesn't make us more impulsive. Check out the Marshmallow Experiment, as well as it's follow up studies. Those who are more impulsive are more likely to be obese. Strike 5. Correct about abdominal fat being correlated highly with diseases. Binge eating actually has a genetic component. Obesity doesn't harm memory. Strike 6.  Obesity linked to brain damage.  The study was unable, however, to determine if obesity is caused by brain damage or is the cause of brain damage.   Which way does the causality go?  Obesity linked to brain damage 2.  Do you have any idea whether or not they controlled for brain size as well as body size in the study? Not to mention how intelligence, as well as brain size, decreases with age. Strike 7.  Being fat makes you stupid.  How many controls were in this study? There were 29 individuals who took the test, but how many control subjects? What variables were controlled for?   Intelligence decreases as weight increases.  Interesting study, but with only 17 obese people out of 103, there needs to be more research on this.  High saturated fat diet causes brain immune cells to consume neuron connections.  This was the study I alluded to earlier. Interesting shit. Though, as I linked, binge eating is linked to genes, ability to delay gratification is largely genetic (see Marshmallow Experiment and its follow-up studies). I really like this study. This came out in November actually.   Early onset of puberty due to childhood obesity robs children of years of their childhood  Kek. Wrong link.  Maternal obesity damages the fetus' DNA, shortens its telomeres, and promises it a shorter lifespan.  Do you know if there are any longitudinal studies that follow this?  Pre-pregnancy obesity strongly linked to infant mortality.  Pre-pregnancy obesity is correlated with low IQ, which that low IQ gets passed to the child, which has his life expectancy be low.  Exposure to obesity changes perception of the weight status of others.  Casual evidence.  Patients with obesity show reduced memory for others’ body shape.  19 people?  Overweight wait staff cause people to eat more.  Is this an observational study? What kind of controls were in measure?  People naturally find obesity disgusting  I agree. The funny part is, is if nothing changes (and lets be honest, it looks like it isn't), those people who are disgusted will become the very thing they are disgusted by. Funny how that works out huh?  Obese organs are no good for donation. Obese livers are too fat and are thrown out. Obese livers are too fat and are thrown out 2.  Good. They should be.  Billions spent on obesity. Economic impact of obesity in the US.  This needs to reverse. Laughing at people won't help that reverse. It actually makes it worse.  Rates of musculoskeletal injuries from overexertion in healthcare occupations are among the highest of all industries.  Then we need to find other ways to deal with them that doesn't involve overexertion on healthcare workers.  Fat is inherently unattractive. Fat is inherently unattractive 2.  I agree. I have lots more info where that came from.