Abstract
Food cues are omnipresent in the daily environment and may influence eating behavior even non-consciously. An increased reactivity to food cues, such as food odors, has been shown to be correlated with obesity in children. The objective of this study is to investigate whether the non-conscious influence of food odors on children's food choices varies by their weight status. Seventy-four children, of whom 29 were obese, took part in this study. The children performed a food choice intention task presented as a computer game in which 30 pairs of food images (a fatty-sweet food picture vs. a fruit picture) successively appeared on the screen. The children had to choose the item "they most wanted to eat at the present moment" for each pair. While performing this task, the children wore a headset in which the microphone foam was odorized with a fruity odor, a fatty-sweet odor or no odor. They performed the intention task three times, one time for each olfactory condition. The odors were non-attentively perceived, i.e., none of the children were aware of the odorization of the microphone foams. The modeled probability is the probability to choose a fruit. In children with obesity, the fruity odor increased the likelihood of a fruit to be chosen compared to the no-odor condition [OR (95% CL) = 1.42 (1.13-1.78), P = 0.0028], while the fatty-sweet odor had no effect on food choice [OR (95% CL) = 1.07 (0.85-1.36), P = 0.55]. In children without obesity, both the fruity and the fatty-sweet odors decreased the likelihood to choose a fruit compared to the no-odor condition [OR (95% CL) = 0.76 (0.64-0.90), P = 0.0015, for the fruity odor and OR (95% CL) = 0.79 (0.66-0.93), P = 0.0062, for the fatty-sweet odor]. The different patterns of results obtained in both groups of children suggest differences in the mental representations activated by non-attentively perceived olfactory cues based on weight status.
Highlights
Current research in social and cognitive psychology suggests that environmental stimuli can have an effect on information processing and behavior, even when people are not aware of these influences [1, 2]
Data from the debriefing questionnaire showed that the children were not aware of the actual goal of the study and that none of them had noticed the presence of an odor on the microphone foam
Pear odor vs. no-odor Pound cake odor vs. no-odor aThe nature of food choices was coded as 0 when a fatty-sweet food was chosen or as 1 when a fruit was chosen: the tested probability in these models is food choice = 1. Odors depending both on the nature of the odors and on children’s weight status
Summary
Current research in social and cognitive psychology suggests that environmental stimuli can have an effect on information processing and behavior, even when people are not aware of these influences [1, 2]. Children are surrounded by food cues, whether they are on TV, the internet, or the street in the form of a billboard or a fast-food restaurant. This constant exposure to palatable energy-dense food cues is noted to be one of the factors responsible for the current obesity epidemic [6,7,8]. The olfactory bulb has direct connections with the amygdala and hippocampus – two brain areas strongly implicated in emotion and memory [10] This may explain why olfaction is successful at triggering emotions and memories and useful to impact food choice behavior [5]. The key point of this study is to focus on the nonconscious influence of food odors on children’s food choices based on their weight status
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