Abstract
Food reward is an important concept for research in eating behaviors. Many food reward tasks have been developed and are in active use. However, little is known how much these tasks overlap. Here, we sought to compare three promising food reward tasks: (1) the Leeds Food Preference Questionnaire (LFPQ; a procedure combining explicit ratings of wanting and liking and an implicit wanting task based on forced choice), (2) a hand grip force task, and (3) an emotional attentional blink (EAB) task. Specifically, we assessed whether the tasks are sensitive to changes in hunger, correlate with each other, and correlate with trait binge eating and snack food calorie intake. Thirty-nine women aged 25.51 ± 5.99 years, with a BMI of 22.51 ± 3.58 kg/m2 completed the three tasks twice: after a 6-h fast and following a breakfast meal. In the fasted condition, participants were also given ad libitum access to snack foods to assess calorie intake. Prior to the two laboratory sessions, participants completed a trait binge eating questionnaire. Results revealed that the LFPQ’s explicit wanting and explicit liking subscales, as well as grip force reflected higher food reward scores in the fasted condition. The three metrics also correlated positively with each other. Explicit wanting and liking correlated with snack food intake, while grip force did not. None of the tasks were related to trait binge eating. Reaction times in the forced choice procedure did not reflect changes in hunger, but the task was nevertheless able to differentiate between foods varying in taste and fat content. The EAB was not sensitive to the hunger manipulation; neither did the task correlate with binge eating or energy intake. Collectively, our findings suggest that the explicit wanting and liking scales and the grip force task measure the same construct, whereas EAB results may be obscured by a variety of potential confounding factors. Future research could include additional food reward tasks in comparisons, measure covariates that may moderate the variables’ associations, and compare hunger-dependent changes in food reward in different subgroups.
Highlights
Increased rates for obesity have motivated a sizable literature investigating the psychological aspects of overeating
Because the reward system is related to the mechanisms that influence food intake beyond homeostatic need (Alonso-Alonso et al, 2015), differences in responsivity to food should explain some of the variability in food intake and predict maladaptive eating (Temple, 2014; Rogers and Hardman, 2015)
The Leeds Food Preference Questionnaire (LFPQ) The LFPQ is a computerized task developed to measure explicit wanting and explicit liking via visual analog scale (VAS) ratings and implicit wanting via a forced choice procedure (Finlayson et al, 2007)
Summary
Increased rates for obesity have motivated a sizable literature investigating the psychological aspects of overeating. A valid food reward task should correlate with other food reward-related behaviors, such as self-reported uncontrolled eating and energy intake Based on these criteria, we hypothesize that when contrasting participants in food-deprived and fed states, participants in a food-deprived state should get higher scores of explicit wanting and liking on the LFPQ, respond slower in the LFPQ’s forced choice procedure, exert more force in the food category of the grip force task, and get fewer correct answers in the food category of the EAB task. We expect that trait binge eating and ad libitum snack food calorie intake correlate positively with the explicit wanting and liking subscales of the LFPQ and the food category of grip force, and negatively with reaction times in the forced choice procedure and the EAB task’s food category performance
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