Appetite最新文献

Introduction: Children's avid eating behaviour is characterised by frequent snacking and food responsiveness. Parents need evidence-based advice on specific feeding practices, such as distraction techniques and portioning, that can be used to reduce children's intake of high energy-dense snacks. This experimental laboratory study tested the effectiveness of these feeding practices.

Methods: Parents and children (3-5 years; N = 129) who were identified as having an avid or typical eating profile were recruited and randomly allocated to one of three conditions. Following a standardised meal, children's energy intake (kcal) in the absence of hunger was assessed. While children had access to a snack buffet, parents were asked to use one of the following feeding practices: (1) Distract - using distraction techniques to delay children's snack intake; (2) Portion - allowing children to have snacks from pre-portioned pots; or (3) Control - allowing children to eat the type and number of snacks that their child wanted to.

Results: Children in the distraction condition consumed significantly less energy from snacks (M = 54.44 kcal, SD = 73.30) compared to children in the portion (M = 103.89 kcal, SD = 91.33, p < .001) or control condition (M = 115.92 kcal, SD = 90.55, p < .001). Energy intake in the portion and control conditions was not significantly different (p > .05). Children with avid versus typical eating profiles did not differ significantly in energy intake (p > .05).

Conclusion: Parental use of distraction techniques may be effective for reducing children's intake of high energy-dense snacks and could be recommended for use to support the development of children's healthy eating. Research to examine the effectiveness of distraction in real-world settings is now needed.

Bread is a major source of carbohydrates in Europe, and whole meal varieties may offer better metabolic responses and increased satiety than white bread. We compared the effects of three types of whole meal bread: whole meal yeast bread (WYB), whole meal sourdough bread (WSB), and whole meal sourdough and yeast bread (WSYB), on appetite regulation and metabolic outcomes in healthy subjects. The sourdough contained Fructilactobacillus sanfranciscensis and Maudiozyma humilis, and the process time depended on the leavening agent. In this double-blind, randomized crossover trial, 44 participants (25 ± 4 years, BMI: 22 ± 2 kg/m²) consumed 180g/day of each bread type for two weeks, separated by a 2-week washout period. Habitual food intake was reported and a fecal sample was collected for microbiota analysis. During a study visit on the final day of each intervention period, participants consumed 100 g of the test bread for breakfast. Oral processing, gastric emptying, and postprandial glucose, C-peptide, appetite and hormonal responses were measured. The primary outcome was ad-libitum energy intake at the subsequent lunch. Ad-libitum energy intake at lunch did not differ after consumption of the test breads. WYB and WSYB were consumed more slowly than WSB and led to slightly higher satiety (p < 0.05). Compared to the other breads, WSYB led to higher C-peptide levels, WYB resulted in greater PYY responses, and both WSB and WYB stimulated higher GLP-1 release (p < 0.05). In contrast, gastric emptying, glucose responses, ad-libitum energy intake, habitual energy intake, cholesterol, or gut microbiota composition did not differ between breads (p > 0.05). Despite the small metabolic differences, our findings suggest that whole meal bread with baker's yeast and/or sourdough had similar effects on appetite regulation.

Objectives: Childhood obesity is one of the major health challenges of the 21st century, a chronic and complicated condition that requires medical intervention. The goal of this study was to investigate the emotional eating levels of children with obesity as well as their mothers' alexithymia and cognitive flexibility, which we hypothesized to contribute to childhood obesity.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional, case-control study of age-, sex-, and ethnicity-matched 100 dyads. All mothers completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and the Cognitive Flexibility Inventory (CFI), and the children completed the Emotional Eating Scale-Children (EES-C). In addition, researchers administered a clinical and sociodemographic questionnaire.

Results: The childhood obesity group exhibited significantly higher levels of emotional eating and maternal alexithymia, but also significantly lower levels of maternal cognitive flexibility compared to those in the healthy control group. Further analyses revealed a significant association between childhood obesity, maternal alexithymia, and irregular sleep patterns in children.

Conclusion: Our results indicate that elevated levels of alexithymia in mothers of children diagnosed with obesity may influence childhood obesity. The aims of early interventions in managing pediatric obesity may include evaluations of families and mothers.

Objective: The purpose of this paper is to measure the degree to which simple automatic habits assessed with the Self-Report Habit Index (SRHI) are associated with validated measures of complex behavioral risk factors in an at-risk population of those with metabolic syndrome (MetS).

Methods: At baseline (2019-2022), 618 participants from 5 US cities who met criteria for MetS to qualify for the ELM trial were administered a series of measures to assess 4 habits (1/2 plate of vegetables at meals, daily brisk walks, pause before reacting, and notice sensory experiences) and 5 behavioral risk factors the habits were intended to represent (vegetable intake, moderate intensity physical activity, daily steps, emotional regulation, and sensory awareness). Spearman's rho correlations between each habit measure and its concomitant behavioral risk factor were calculated to assess criterion validity, spillover to other related behavioral risk factors, and discriminant validity relative to the Perceived Stress Scale.

Results: Three of the four habits showed moderate correlations with their respective risk factors with ranges from r = 0.31 to r = 0.44 (all p < 0.001). The strongest association was an inverse correlation between the habit pause before reacting and perceived stress (r = -0.34, p < 0.001). The weakest associations were between the physical activity habit and accelerometer-assessed moderate intensity physical activity (r = 0.16) and daily steps (r = 0.18), both p < 0.001.

Conclusions: This study supports a correspondence between habits assessed by the SRHI and the more complex behavioral risk factors they are intended to represent. It justifies targeting simple habits in service of improving complex behavioral risk factors and managing clinical problems such as MetS.

Plant-based meat alternatives (PBMAs) play a key role in the transition towards more sustainable food systems. Consumer research has so far primarily focused on how personal factors influence people's decisions for or against PBMAs. Yet dietary choices are socially embedded and subject to interpersonal influences. Among these, romantic partners may be particularly important for each other's PBMA consumption because of their close relationship and high rate of meal sharing. Partner's roles might be more pronounced if partners differ in their attachment to meat. Using a Swiss convenience sample of 136 couples who differed in their level of meat consumption, we examined how dietary motives were associated with personal and partner's PBMA consumption. Both partners reported on dietary motives and food consumption in a baseline survey and across 28 shared meals, which allowed us to test between- and within-person effects using dyadic modeling frameworks. Regarding personal effects, being more concerned about animals and the environment related positively, and endorsing common meat-eating beliefs negatively, with PBMA consumption. Having limited access to alternatives was a barrier to PBMA choice for individuals with lower meat consumption. Regarding interpersonal effects, partners were more likely to eat PBMAs at meals where the other person was more concerned about animals. Lower (but not higher) meat consuming individuals' beliefs that meat is natural, necessary, and nice were associated with less frequent PBMA consumption of their partners. This exploratory study highlights the value of taking an intra- and interpersonal perspective to research on, and the promotion of, meat substitution.

Which interventions produce the largest and most enduring reductions in consumption of meat and animal products (MAP)? We address this question with a theoretical review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials that measured MAP consumption at least one day after intervention. We meta-analyze 35 papers comprising 41 studies, 112 interventions, and approximately 87,000 subjects. We find that these papers employ four major strategies to change behavior: choice architecture, persuasion, psychology (manipulating the interpersonal, cognitive, or affective factors associated with eating MAP), and a combination of persuasion and psychology. The pooled effect of all 112 interventions on MAP consumption is quite small (standardized mean difference (SMD) = 0.07 (95 % CI: [0.02, 0.12]), indicating an unsolved problem. Interventions aiming to reduce only consumption of red and processed meat were more effective (SMD = 0.25; 95 % CI: [0.11, 0.38]), but it remains unclear whether such interventions also decrease consumption of other forms of MAP. We conclude that while existing approaches do not provide a proven remedy to MAP consumption, designs and measurement strategies have generally been improving over time, and many promising interventions await rigorous evaluation.

Perseverative cognition (e.g., worry, rumination) is cross-sectionally associated with disordered eating behaviors and negative affect; yet little research has examined its causal role in emotional eating (EE). The current preregistered experimental study tested the influence of one type of perseverative cognition-worry-on objectively measured food consumption in the laboratory. A total of 129 undergraduate students (67.4% cisgender women, Age_M = 19.87) were screened via a semi-structured diagnostic interview and randomly assigned to either a worry induction or control condition. Following the manipulation, participants completed a bogus taste test with chocolate, potato chips, and crackers. They also completed self-report measures of emotion regulation, intolerance of uncertainty, disinhibition, and EE. Manipulation checks confirmed that participants in the worry condition experienced significantly higher post-induction worry relative to controls. Primary analyses revealed that participants in the worry condition consumed significantly more potato chips (p = .039, d = .32) and total food (p = .032, d = .33) compared to the control condition. No moderating effects of intolerance of uncertainty (IU), emotion dysregulation (ER), or disinhibition were observed. Moreover, neither a broad-based self-report measure of EE (p = .555) nor a specific measure of worry-related EE (p = .855) predicted the amount of food consumed or moderated the effect of condition. Findings provide novel experimental evidence that worry, as a specific form of perseverative cognition, can contribute to EE behavior. Targeting worry as a transdiagnostic mechanism may enhance the effectiveness of interventions for EE.

This study aimed to examine how the emotional valence of food differentially modulates cortical hemodynamic responses. We investigated the neural basis of food preference by comparing brain activity during the intake of individually selected palatable and unpalatable foods. Twenty-one healthy right-handed participants (10 males, 11 females; mean age: 28.1 ± 3.7 years) were included in the study. Palatable and unpalatable foods were selected based on pre-experimental questionnaires, and all participants fasted for three hours before testing. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to assess hemodynamic changes in the bilateral frontoparietal regions during food ingestion. To reduce motion artifacts, only soft-textured foods were used. Emotional valence was evaluated using a visual analog scale (VAS), and raw fNIRS data were processed using spatial filtering to eliminate systemic effects. A general linear model was applied to extract activation related specifically to emotional responses, and cortical activity maps were generated from the oxygenated hemoglobin signals. One-sample t-tests were performed to identify common activation patterns in both palatable and unpalatable conditions. The left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) showed significant activation correlating with emotional valence intensity for both food types. Importantly, palatable and unpalatable foods engaged distinct subregions of the prefrontal cortex, suggesting that the qualitative direction of emotional valence, positive or negative, is encoded by distinct neural substrates rather than merely reflecting response intensity. These findings imply that the DLPFC plays a significant role in the expression of food preferences, enhancing our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying food-related emotions and potentially informing strategies to address maladaptive eating behaviors.

A better understanding of factors contributing to the development and maintenance of obesity is needed in order to generate effective interventions. One factor that may be responsible for making some individuals more vulnerable to overeating and remaining obese is an increased attentional bias (AB) towards food. For individuals with obesity food stimuli may be processed relatively efficiently and require less attentional resources to enter awareness. Once a food stimulus has captured attention, it may be preferentially processed and granted prioritized access to limited cognitive resources. Such capturing of attention is termed temporal AB and heightened temporal AB might undermine attempts to restrict food intake and render individuals vulnerable to overeating and remaining obese. To test whether temporal AB could play a role in the maintenance of adolescent obesity, this study tested whether adolescents with obesity showed a greater temporal AB towards food than adolescents with a healthy weight using a single target Rapid Serial Visual Presentation Task (RSVP). Fifty-one adolescents with obesity and 51 adolescents with a healthy weight matched on age, sex and educational level (79% female, M age = 16.5) completed the RSVP with food and neutral pictures as distractors. We added pictures of overweight bodies as distractors to explore the relevance of processing priority of body features in adolescents with obesity. We found no difference in temporal AB towards food or overweight bodies between adolescents with obesity and adolescents with a healthy weight. Our findings provided no evidence for the notion that these biases may play a role in the maintenance of adolescent obesity.

The adaptation of taste perception to extreme and extraordinary environments remains poorly understood, yet it may offer valuable insights into the physiological processes of ageing and adaptation. This study explores how hypoxia - whether environmental, as experienced at high altitude, or constitutive, as observed in older adults - affects taste function, with implications for nutrition under both extreme and age-related conditions. The research was structured in two parts: i. an investigation of taste perception during a high-altitude. Himalayan expedition, and ii. a cross-sectional comparison of taste sensitivity across age groups. In the first part, 17 healthy adults underwent taste tests at low altitude (Kathmandu, 1,450 m), high altitude (Pyramid Lab, 5,050 m), and again at low altitude after descent. In the second part, 103 participants were grouped by age (18-40, 41-64, and over 64 years) to assess age-related differences in taste function. Preliminary findings suggest that high-altitude exposure may moderately reduce taste sensitivity, particularly for sweet stimuli, requiring higher concentrations for correct identification. Similarly, ageing appears to impair taste perception, though the effect is not uniform across all taste qualities- salty taste, for instance, remains relatively preserved. These results point to a possible shared mechanism: the role of hypoxia in modulating sensory function. While the hypoxia encountered at high altitude is acute and environmental, older adults may experience a form of chronic, low-grade hypoxia due to physiological ageing. This parallel invite a broader reflection on how the body adapts to oxygen-limited conditions, and how such adaptations might inform nutritional strategies in both extreme environments and geriatric care.