Abstract
Unhealthy eating habits involving the consumption of highly-palatable energy-dense foods are a major contributor to weight gain its associated health conditions. Consumption of these “unhealthy” items continues to be common despite ongoing efforts for promoting healthy-eating behavior. However, relatively little is known about the factors that lead to the consumption of unhealthy foods. Prior research has shown that states of hunger influence the desire to eat without changing the perception or enjoyment of food items. The present study utilized an online-survey which asked participants to rate foods according to the items’ palatability, likelihood of being consumed, and healthiness. Demographic and bodily state information was also collected. The results of this study demonstrate that, in college students, a state of hunger biases the selection (“wanting”) of foods toward highly-palatable (“tasty”) food items. However, this finding was not observed in data gathered from a sample of older adults affiliated with a health and fitness organization. Collectively, this may suggest that age, education, or increased health-awareness can influence the preference for high-palatable foods that occurs when individuals are hungry.
Highlights
Weight-gain caused by excess caloric intake and sedentary lifestyles is thought to be a major contributing factor the development of serious health conditions like obesity, heart disease, type-II diabetes, stroke, and certain types of cancer [1,2]
Individual Factorial Analysis of Variance tests revealed the following for each rating type: For palatability, there was a significant main effect of hunger (F(1, 112)=4.719; p=0.032), but no main effect of sex (F(1, 112)=2.447; https://cirworld.com/index.php/jssr p=0.121), nor a hunger by sex interaction effect (F(1, 112)=0.601; p=0.440)
There was no main effect of hunger (F(1,112)=0.18; p=0.893), but there was a significant main effect of sex (F(1,112)=5.387; p=0.022 )
Summary
Weight-gain caused by excess caloric intake and sedentary lifestyles is thought to be a major contributing factor the development of serious health conditions like obesity, heart disease, type-II diabetes, stroke, and certain types of cancer [1,2]. The widespread consumption of energy-dense foods is thought to be one of the major factors contributing to weight-gain and the development of obesity [2, 7, 12; 13] These foods, which commonly include fast-food, snack foods, sweetened-drinks, and desserts, are high in their calorie-per-gram content (MJ/kg), usually due to a lack of water and high concentrations of carbohydrates, starches, and fats [7]. This concentration of nutrients can lead to excess intake of calories, especially since these foods often displace low-density (“healthy”) foods in the diet [2] and are consumed at similar volumes as less-dense foods [7]. It is important to consider what factors other than perceived healthiness of foods may influence the preference for highly-palatable energy-dense food items
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