As if it weren’t already a huge drag to be overweight in our thinness obsessed, french fry saturated culture, researches recently discovered that being obese can lead to an incredibly shrinking brain.

The study completed by UCLA professor of Neurology Paul Thompson investigated the brains of 94 people in the 70’s. The brains of the obese individuals (BMI of 30+) had eight percent less tissue than their normal weighted counter parts and their brains appeared to have aged prematurely by 16 years. People classified as overweight (BMI of 25-30) fared somewhat better with brain loss of four percent and eight years of premature aging. Brain loss was seen in key areas of the think box such as the frontal and temporal lobes used for critical planning and memory and the hippocampus, which is involved in long term memory. Researches hypothesis that being over-weight not only puts people at risk for ailments such as diabetes, heart disease and some cancers, but also Alzheimers and other degenerative brain diseases.

If you are currently overweight or obese and are wondering what to do with all that extra space in your head, the good news is that its possible to fill it back up with grey and white matter. Five years after the initial scans some of the study participants were able to reverse their brain loss by as much as four percent (and find their keys to that they could finally go home). It is so good to know that like bone and muscles, the brain is capable of regenerating itself. Go brain go!

The study is further evidence that ignoring the needs of the body while cultivating other lovely traits such as intelligence, compassion or the ability to play the flugelhorn is a dangerous path, because eventually you won’t even be able to find your flugelhorn. The brain body connection cannot be ignored. So go for a walk, take a yoga class or take all your big books off the shelf, put them in the kitchen and then put them back on the shelf again. Your brain will thank you.

Read more about the study at the online magazine Human Brain Mapping.