In a study of motorists, those driving the sorts of expensive cars that suggest wealth and power yielded to walkers crossing the street about half the time. Yet those operating cars that imply the opposite gave way to walkers nearly every single time.

What can you gather from this? According to UC Berkeley psychology professor Dacher Keltner, PhD, author of The Power Paradox: How We Gain and Lose Power (Penguin 2016), it's an example of how power can make you less empathetic and more impolite towards others.Power has other pitfalls, too. In an article penned by Peter Jaret and posted as part of a University of Berkeley Wellness newsletter, Keltner explained that those in power tend to be less sensitive, more impulsive, more focused on their own desires, and greedier than those who aren't.Apply those same attributes to eating and guess what you get? A far greater likelihood of unwanted weight gain.Yes, unwanted weight gain is another pitfall of power, though it's not the product of a mid-six figure salary and an impressive job title. It's a power possessed, ironically, by both the rich and all but the poorest of the poor. It emanates from every microwave, refrigerator freezer, convenience store, and fast food restaurant.It's the power to immediately access food.Keep that in mind as you read the research featured in the rest of this column. What the different studies share in common is not only information to give you the power to help you make better health and fitness decisions, but situations that allow for a degree of control on your part.In other words, circumstances where you possess the power.Now the question is, will you use that power wisely?For instance, you decide, obviously, when to go to bed and get up. But according to research published last December in the journal eLife, that decision can determine something else: the amount of sugary and fat foods you consume.Researchers at the University of Tsukuba's International Institute for Integrative Sleep Medicine used mice to find that the loss of one specific sleep state that humans also reach, REM or rapid-eye movement, increases the desire of the mice for foods high in fat and sugar.So the next time you decide a home project or a television show is worth sacrificing an hour or two of shuteye, be aware that you may just be sacrificing something else later: control of your food consumption at the kitchen table. In essence, the decision to sacrifice sleep creates a cascade of repercussions in the body, akin to the toppling the first domino in a line of them.For example, another study published last December deprived subjects of sleep and found it caused a reduction in insulin sensitivity by 20 percent. Since the research published in the journal Molecular Metabolism used nine healthy men who were a normal weight, it's quite possible, maybe even probable, that both overweight men and women would be even more aversely affected by less-than-optimal amounts of sleep.Simply stated, having a reduction of sensitivity to insulin is bad for your health because it makes it far more likely that you gain weight and enough of it that your chance of becoming obese and developing type 2 diabetes increases significantly.Another decision that increases the likelihood of obesity and type 2 diabetes is to eat the way most Americans do.Research performed at University of California, Riverside and published online this January by Physiology & Behavior determined that a diet high in sugars and fats, often dubbed the "western diet," actually triggers a desire for food by sending the same sorts of signals and using the same pathways as marijuana does. In other words, it's not just the whacky weed but also the western diet that can give you the "munchies."What actually occurs in your body in either case the medicos call peripheral endocannabinoid signaling, and it influences food intake, energy balance, and the sense of dietary reward. The way the signaling takes place is through lipid molecules called endocannabinoids, which are known as the body's own natural cannabis.By reading the highlights of just three studies, it's hoped this pattern becomes apparent: when negative things happen to your health or your body, there's a reason why.The negative health is not nilly-willy or luck of the draw. It is a condition brought on by an outside force.And more often than people generally know - or are willing to acknowledge - that force is under their control, once again proving that in the vast majority of situations, when you have a health-and-fitness problem, either directly or indirectly you have caused it.