Appetizing
Neighborhood fast food availability and fast food consumption
Nathalie Oexle et al.
Appetite, September 2015, Pages 227–232
Abstract:
Recent nutritional and public health research has focused on how the availability of various types of food in a person's immediate area or neighborhood influences his or her food choices and eating habits. It has been theorized that people living in areas with a wealth of unhealthy fast-food options may show higher levels of fast-food consumption, a factor that often coincides with being overweight or obese. However, measuring food availability in a particular area is difficult to achieve consistently: there may be differences in the strict physical locations of food options as compared to how individuals perceive their personal food availability, and various studies may use either one or both of these measures. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between weekly fast-food consumption and both a person's perceived availability of fast-food and an objective measure of fast-food presence — Geographic Information Systems (GIS) — within that person's neighborhood. A randomly selected population-based sample of eight counties in South Carolina was used to conduct a cross-sectional telephone survey assessing self-report fast-food consumption and perceived availability of fast food. GIS was used to determine the actual number of fast-food outlets within each participant's neighborhood. Using multinomial logistic regression analyses, we found that neither perceived availability nor GIS-based presence of fast-food was significantly associated with weekly fast-food consumption. Our findings indicate that availability might not be the dominant factor influencing fast-food consumption. We recommend using subjective availability measures and considering individual characteristics that could influence both perceived availability of fast food and its impact on fast-food consumption. If replicated, our findings suggest that interventions aimed at reducing fast-food consumption by limiting neighborhood fast-food availability might not be completely effective.
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Do 'Cheeseburger Bills' Work? Effects of Tort Reform for Fast Food
Christopher Carpenter & Sebastian Tello-Trillo
NBER Working Paper, May 2015
Abstract:
After highly publicized lawsuits against McDonald’s in 2002, 26 states adopted Commonsense Consumption Acts (CCAs) – aka ‘Cheeseburger Bills’ – that greatly limit fast food companies’ liability for weight-related harms. We provide the first evidence of the effects of CCAs using plausibly exogenous variation in the timing of CCA adoption across states. In two-way fixed effects models, we find that CCAs significantly increased stated attempts to lose weight and consumption of fruits and vegetables among heavy individuals. We also find that CCAs significantly increased employment in fast food. Finally, we find that CCAs significantly increased the number of company-owned McDonald’s restaurants and decreased the number of franchise-owned McDonald’s restaurants in a state. Overall our results provide novel evidence supporting a key prediction of tort reform – that it should induce individuals to take more care – and show that industry-specific tort reforms can have meaningful effects on market outcomes.
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Behavioral and Environmental Modification of the Genetic Influence on Body Mass Index: A Twin Study
Erin Horn et al.
Behavior Genetics, July 2015, Pages 409-426
Abstract:
Body mass index (BMI) has a strong genetic basis, with a heritability around 0.75, but is also influenced by numerous behavioral and environmental factors. Aspects of the built environment (e.g., environmental walkability) are hypothesized to influence obesity by directly affecting BMI, by facilitating or inhibiting behaviors such as physical activity that are related to BMI, or by suppressing genetic tendencies toward higher BMI. The present study investigated relative influences of physical activity and walkability on variance in BMI using 5079 same-sex adult twin pairs (70 % monozygotic, 65 % female). High activity and walkability levels independently suppressed genetic variance in BMI. Estimating their effects simultaneously, however, suggested that the walkability effect was mediated by activity. The suppressive effect of activity on variance in BMI was present even with a tendency for low-BMI individuals to select into environments that require higher activity levels. Overall, our results point to community- or macro-level interventions that facilitate individual-level behaviors as a plausible approach to addressing the obesity epidemic among US adults.
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Vertical Transmission of Overweight: Evidence from English Adoptees
Joan Costa-Font, Mireia Jofre-Bonet & Julian Le Grand
London School of Economics Working Paper, May 2015
Abstract:
We examine the vertical transmission of overweight drawing upon a sample of English children, both adopted and non-adopted, and their families. Our results suggest strong evidence of an intergenerational association of overweight among adoptees, indicating transmission through cultural factors. We find that, when both adoptive parents are overweight, the likelihood of an adopted child being overweight is between 10% and 20% higher than when they are not. We also find that the cultural transmission of overweight is not aggravated by having a full-time working mother, so do not confirm the existence of a female labour market participation penalty on child overweight among adoptees. Overall, our findings, despite subject to data limitations, are robust to a battery of robustness checks, specification and sample selection corrections.
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Rana Mosli et al.
Appetite, September 2015, Pages 167–172
Abstract:
Birth order has been associated with childhood obesity. The objective of this cross-sectional study was to examine maternal feeding and child eating behaviors as underlying processes for increased weight status of only children and youngest siblings. Participants included 274 low-income 4–8 year old children and their mothers. The dyads completed a videotaped laboratory mealtime observation. Mothers completed the Caregiver's Feeding Styles Questionnaire and the Children's Eating Behavior Questionnaire. Child weight and height were measured using standardized procedures. Path analysis was used to examine associations of birth order, maternal feeding behaviors, child eating behavior, and child overweight/obese status. The association between only child status and greater likelihood of overweight/obesity was fully mediated by higher maternal Verbal Discouragement to eat and lower maternal Praise (all p values < 0.05). The association between youngest sibling status and greater likelihood of overweight/obesity was partially mediated by lower maternal Praise and lower child Food Fussiness (all p values < 0.05). Results provide support for our hypothesis that maternal control and support and child food acceptance are underlying pathways for the association between birth order and weight status. Future findings can help inform family-based programs by guiding family counseling and tailoring of recommendations for family mealtime interactions.
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Kevin Gee
Journal of Adolescent Health, forthcoming
Purpose: In 2003, Arkansas enacted Act 1220, one of the first comprehensive legislative initiatives aimed at addressing childhood obesity. One important provision of Act 1220 mandated that all children attending public schools be screened for their body mass index (BMI) and the information sent home to their parents. Since then, eight other states have adopted similar school-based BMI screening and notification policies. Despite their widespread adoption and implementation, there is a dearth of empirical studies evaluating such policies, particularly for adolescents. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether adolescents, who had been previously screened in early adolescence, experienced changes in their health outcomes if they continued to receive screening and reporting throughout late adolescence (11th and 12th grades).
Methods: Secondary data from the Centers for Disease Control's Youth Risk Behavior Survey were analyzed using the method of difference-in-differences. Changes in outcomes between 10th and 12th grade were compared between a group of students who received screenings throughout 11th and 12th grades versus a later comparison group who were exempt from screening and reporting requirements in 11th and 12th grades.
Results: BMI screening and parental notification during late adolescence, given prior screening and notification in early adolescence, was not significantly related to BMI-for-age z-scores, the probability of being in a lower weight classification or exercise and dietary intake behaviors.
Conclusions: Exposing 11th and 12th graders to BMI screening and reporting, given that they had been exposed in prior grades, was not associated with adolescents' health outcomes.
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Reduced facial emotion recognition in overweight and obese children
Anne Koch & Olga Pollatos
Journal of Psychosomatic Research, forthcoming
Objective: Emotional problems often co-occur in overweight or obese children. However, questions of whether emotion recognition deficits are present and how they are reflected have only been sparsely investigated to date.
Methods: Therefore, the present study included 33 overweight and obese as well as 33 normal weight elementary school children between six and ten years that were matched for sex, age and socioeconomic status. Participants were shown different emotional faces of a well-validated set of stimuli on a computer screen, which they categorized and then rated on an emotional intensity level. Key measures were categorization performance along with reaction times and emotional intelligence as well as emotional eating questionnaire ratings.
Results: Overweight children exhibited lower categorization accuracy as well as longer reaction times as compared to normal weight children, while no differences in intensity ratings occurred. Reaction time to neutral facial expressions was negatively related to intrapersonal and interpersonal emotional intelligence and emotional eating correlated negatively with accuracy for recognizing sad expressions.
Conclusion: Facial emotion decoding difficulties seem to be of importance in overweight and obese children and deserve further consideration in terms of their exact impact on social functioning as well as on the maintenance of elevated body weight during child development.
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Change in Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status and Weight Gain: Dallas Heart Study
Tiffany Powell-Wiley et al.
American Journal of Preventive Medicine, July 2015, Pages 72–79
Introduction: Despite a proposed connection between neighborhood environment and obesity, few longitudinal studies have examined the relationship between change in neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation, as defined by moving between neighborhoods, and change in body weight. The purpose of this study is to examine the longitudinal relationship between moving to more socioeconomically deprived neighborhoods and weight gain as a cardiovascular risk factor.
Methods: Weight (kilograms) was measured in the Dallas Heart Study (DHS), a multiethnic cohort aged 18–65 years, at baseline (2000–2002) and 7-year follow-up (2007–2009, N=1,835). Data were analyzed in 2013–2014. Geocoded addresses were linked to Dallas County, TX, census block groups. A block group-level neighborhood deprivation index (NDI) was created. Multilevel difference-in-difference models with random effects and a Heckman correction factor (HCF) determined weight change relative to NDI change.
Results: Forty-nine percent of the DHS population moved (263 to higher NDI, 586 to lower NDI, 47 within same NDI), with blacks more likely to move than whites or Hispanics (p<0.01), but similar baseline BMI and waist circumference were observed in movers versus non-movers (p>0.05). Adjusting for HCF, sex, race, and time-varying covariates, those who moved to areas of higher NDI gained more weight compared to those remaining in the same or moving to a lower NDI (0.64 kg per 1-unit NDI increase, 95% CI=0.09, 1.19). Impact of NDI change on weight gain increased with time (p=0.03).
Conclusions: Moving to more–socioeconomically deprived neighborhoods was associated with weight gain among DHS participants.
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Physical activity and food consumption: The moderating role of individual dieting tendency
Chiu-Chi Angela Chang & Ying-Ching Lin
Journal of Health Psychology, May 2015, Pages 490-499
Abstract:
Applying theory on justification and self-control, this research examines the impact of physical activity on dieters’ and nondieters’ food consumption patterns. The results from two studies demonstrate that dieters, but not nondieters, consume more food after exercising as compared to situations in which no exercise is involved. In addition, dieters consume more food when they anticipate engaging in physical activity as compared to when they have completed their exercising. When physical activity is framed as fun (vs work), dieters decrease the amount of food they consume after exercising. Estimation of calories burned through exercise underlies this result.
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Joerg Koenigstorfer & Hans Baumgartner
Journal of Marketing Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Individuals who want to control their body weight often aim to regulate both energy intake (by reducing food consumption) and energy expenditure (by increasing physical activity), thus addressing both sides of the energy balance equation. Marketers have developed fitness-branded food that may lead restrained eaters (i.e., consumers who are chronically concerned about their body weight) to believe that they can achieve these two goals at the same time by consuming the food. The purpose of this research is to investigate the effects of fitness branding in food marketing (i.e., the integration of fitness into the branding of food) on consumption and physical activity in restrained (vs. unrestrained) eaters. The authors show that fitness branding increases consumption volumes for restrained eaters unless the food is viewed as dietary forbidden. Restrained eaters are also less physically active after consuming fitness-branded food, and food consumption volumes mediate this effect in restrained eaters. Fitness branding may therefore have undesirable effects on the weight control behaviors of restrained eaters because it discourages physical activity despite an increase in consumption, which is contrary to the principle of energy balance.
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Cost Effectiveness of a Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Excise Tax in the U.S.
Michael Long et al.
American Journal of Preventive Medicine, July 2015, Pages 112–123
Introduction: Reducing sugar-sweetened beverage consumption through taxation is a promising public health response to the obesity epidemic in the U.S. This study quantifies the expected health and economic benefits of a national sugar-sweetened beverage excise tax of $0.01/ounce over 10 years.
Methods: A cohort model was used to simulate the impact of the tax on BMI. Assuming ongoing implementation and effect maintenance, quality-adjusted life-years gained and disability-adjusted life-years and healthcare costs averted were estimated over the 2015–2025 period for the 2015 U.S. population. Costs and health gains were discounted at 3% annually. Data were analyzed in 2014.
Results: Implementing the tax nationally would cost $51 million in the first year. The tax would reduce sugar-sweetened beverage consumption by 20% and mean BMI by 0.16 (95% uncertainty interval [UI]=0.06, 0.37) units among youth and 0.08 (95% UI=0.03, 0.20) units among adults in the second year for a cost of $3.16 (95% UI=$1.24, $8.14) per BMI unit reduced. From 2015 to 2025, the policy would avert 101,000 disability-adjusted life-years (95% UI=34,800, 249,000); gain 871,000 quality-adjusted life-years (95% UI=342,000, 2,030,000); and result in $23.6 billion (95% UI=$9.33 billion, $54.9 billion) in healthcare cost savings. The tax would generate $12.5 billion in annual revenue (95% UI=$8.92, billion, $14.1 billion).
Conclusions: The proposed tax could substantially reduce BMI and healthcare expenditures and increase healthy life expectancy. Concerns regarding the potentially regressive tax may be addressed by reduced obesity disparities and progressive earmarking of tax revenue for health promotion.
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Motivating Healthy Diet Behaviors: The Self-as-Doer Identity
Amanda Brouwer & Katie Mosack
Self and Identity, forthcoming
Abstract:
We investigated whether the experimental manipulation of a self-as-doer identity predicted improved healthy food consumption immediately and one month post-intervention. Women (N = 124), 18–53 years old (M = 22.1, SD = 5.8) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions (i.e., control, education, or education and self-as-doer activity) and recorded their diets over six weeks. Repeated measures ANCOVAs were performed to determine if the self-as-doer intervention created change in healthy food consumption. Self-as-doer participants ate more healthy foods one month post-intervention than did other participants. Self-as-doer participants maintained overall healthy eating behaviors while education and control participants decreased these behaviors over the six-week period. Findings demonstrate initial evidence of an intervention effect on healthy food consumption and we discuss ways to advance research on the self-as-doer identity construct.
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Social Norms Shift Behavioral and Neural Responses to Foods
Erik Nook & Jamil Zaki
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, July 2015, Pages 1412-1426
Abstract:
Obesity contributes to 2.8 million deaths annually, making interventions to promote healthy eating critical. Although preliminary research suggests that social norms influence eating behavior, the underlying psychological and neural mechanisms of such conformity remain unexplored. We used fMRI to investigate whether group norms shift individuals' preferences for foods at both behavioral and neural levels. Hungry participants rated how much they wanted to eat a series of healthy and unhealthy foods and, after each trial, saw ratings that ostensibly represented their peers' preferences. This feedback was manipulated such that peers appeared to prefer each food more than, less than, or as much as participants themselves. After a delay, participants rerated each food. Participants' second ratings shifted to resemble group norms. Initial consensus, as compared to disagreement, with peers produced activity in the nucleus accumbens, a region associated with reward prediction errors. Furthermore, the strength of this activity predicted the extent to which participants' ratings conformed to peer ratings, suggesting that the value associated with consensus drives social influence. Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vMPFC), a region associated with value computation, initially responded more strongly to unhealthy, as compared to healthy, foods. However, this effect was “overwritten” by group norms. After individuals learned their peers' preferences, vMPFC responses tracked the popularity, but not the healthfulness, of foods. Furthermore, changes in vMPFC activity tracked social influence over behavioral ratings. These data provide evidence that group norms can shift food preferences, supporting the use of norms-based interventions to promote healthy eating.
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Deanna Wallace et al.
Appetite, September 2015, Pages 74–80
Abstract:
The role of dopamine is extensively documented in weight regulation and food intake in both animal models and humans. Yet the role of dopamine has not been well studied in individual differences for food desirability. Genotype status of the dopamine-related catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene has been shown to influence dopamine levels, with greater COMT enzymatic activity in val/val individuals corresponding to greater degradation of dopamine. Decreased dopamine has been associated with poorer cognitive control and diminished goal-directed behavior in various behavioral paradigms. Additionally, dopaminergic-rich regions such as the frontal cortex and dorsal striatum have been shown to be important for supporting food-related decision-making. However, the role of dopamine, as assessed by COMT genotype status, in food desirability has not been fully explored. Therefore, we utilized an individual's COMT genotype status (n = 61) and investigated food desirability based on self-rated “healthy” and “unhealthy” food perceptions. Here we found val/val individuals (n = 19) have greater desirability for self-rated “unhealthy” food items, but not self-rated “healthy” food items, as compared to val/met (n = 24) and met/met (n = 18) individuals (p < 0.005). Utilizing an objective health measure for the food items, we also found val/val and val/met individuals have greater desirability for objectively defined “unhealthy” food items, as compared to met/met individuals (p < 0.01). This work further substantiates the role of dopamine in food-related behaviors and more specifically in relationship to food desirability for “unhealthy” food items.
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Immigrant Neighborhood Concentration, Acculturation and Obesity Among Young Adults
Hiromi Ishizawa & Antwan Jones
Journal of Urban Affairs, forthcoming
Abstract:
Researchers repeatedly find that immigrants are healthier than their native-born counterparts. Among immigrant children, however, findings are mixed. Moreover, the effect of neighborhood context on obesity has not been fully examined. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adult Health, this study investigates the linkages between acculturation, neighborhood characteristics, and obesity among young adults, including the potential for residing in an immigrant neighborhood, to mediate the adverse effects of low neighborhood socioeconomic conditions on obesity. Consistent with the unhealthy assimilation model, an immigrant health advantage is found for first generation Asians. Conversely, a greater likelihood of being obese is found for second and third and higher generation Hispanics relative to third and higher generation Whites. Further, a high concentration of immigrants and linguistically isolated households appear to work as a buffer against health risks that relate to obesity, particularly in poor neighborhoods.
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Evolution of nutritional quality in the US: Evidence from the ready-to-eat cereal industry
Emily Wang, Christian Rojas & Christoph Bauner
Economics Letters, August 2015, Pages 105–108
Abstract:
We construct historical nutrition quality indices for the ready-to-eat cereal industry and find that: 1) there exists a discrepancy between the nutrition quality of available products and that of the actual intake, 2) nutrition quality declined between 1988 and 2001 but has been increasing since then (although levels are still lower than in 1988), and 3) the decline in nutritional quality intake cannot be attributed to pricier or a limited availability of healthier options.
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Shan Luo et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 19 May 2015, Pages 6509–6514
Abstract:
Prior studies suggest that fructose compared with glucose may be a weaker suppressor of appetite, and neuroimaging research shows that food cues trigger greater brain reward responses in a fasted relative to a fed state. We sought to determine the effects of ingesting fructose versus glucose on brain, hormone, and appetitive responses to food cues and food-approach behavior. Twenty-four healthy volunteers underwent two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) sessions with ingestion of either fructose or glucose in a double-blinded, random-order cross-over design. fMRI was performed while participants viewed images of high-calorie foods and nonfood items using a block design. After each block, participants rated hunger and desire for food. Participants also performed a decision task in which they chose between immediate food rewards and delayed monetary bonuses. Hormones were measured at baseline and 30 and 60 min after drink ingestion. Ingestion of fructose relative to glucose resulted in smaller increases in plasma insulin levels and greater brain reactivity to food cues in the visual cortex (in whole-brain analysis) and left orbital frontal cortex (in region-of-interest analysis). Parallel to the neuroimaging findings, fructose versus glucose led to greater hunger and desire for food and a greater willingness to give up long-term monetary rewards to obtain immediate high-calorie foods. These findings suggest that ingestion of fructose relative to glucose results in greater activation of brain regions involved in attention and reward processing and may promote feeding behavior.
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Kristina Rapuano et al.
Cerebral Cortex, forthcoming
Abstract:
The prevalence of adolescent obesity has increased dramatically over the past 3 decades, and research has documented that the number of television shows viewed during childhood is associated with greater risk for obesity. In particular, considerable evidence suggests that exposure to food marketing promotes eating habits that contribute to obesity. The present study examines neural responses to dynamic food commercials in overweight and healthy-weight adolescents using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Compared with non-food commercials, food commercials more strongly engaged regions involved in attention and saliency detection (occipital lobe, precuneus, superior temporal gyri, and right insula) and in processing rewards [left and right nucleus accumbens (NAcc) and left orbitofrontal cortex (OFC)]. Activity in the left OFC and right insula further correlated with subjects' percent body fat at the time of the scan. Interestingly, this reward-related activity to food commercials was accompanied by the additional recruitment of mouth-specific somatosensory-motor cortices — a finding that suggests the intriguing possibility that higher-adiposity adolescents mentally simulate eating behaviors and offers a potential neural mechanism for the formation and reinforcement of unhealthy eating habits that may hamper an individual's ability lose weight later in life.
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Manipulations of attention during eating and their effects on later snack intake
Suzanne Higgs
Appetite, September 2015, Pages 287–294
Abstract:
Manipulation of attention during eating has been reported to affect later consumption via changes in meal memory. The aim of the present studies was to examine the robustness of these effects and investigate moderating factors. Across three studies, attention to eating was manipulated via distraction (via a computer game or TV watching) or focusing of attention to eating, and effects on subsequent snack consumption and meal memory were assessed. The participants were predominantly lean, young women students and the designs were between-subjects. Distraction increased later snack intake and this effect was larger when participants were more motivated to engage with the distracter and were offset when the distractor included food-related cues. Attention to eating reduced later snacking and this effect was larger when participants imagined eating from their own perspective than when they imagined eating from a third person perspective. Meal memory was impaired after distraction but focusing on eating did not affect later meal memory, possibly explained by ceiling effects for the memory measure. The pattern of results suggests that attention manipulations during eating have robust effects on later eating and the effect sizes are medium to large. The data are consistent with previous reports and add to the literature by suggesting that type of attention manipulation is important in determining effects on later eating. The results further suggest that attentive eating may be a useful target in interventions to help with appetite control.
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Nicole Gatto et al.
Obesity, June 2015, Pages 1244–1251
Objective: To assess the effects of a 12-week gardening, nutrition, and cooking intervention (“LA Sprouts”) on dietary intake, obesity parameters, and metabolic disease risk among low-income, primarily Hispanic/Latino youth in Los Angeles.
Methods: The randomized controlled trial involved four elementary schools [two schools randomized to intervention (172 third–through fifth-grade students); two schools randomized to control (147 third–through fifth-grade students)]. Classes were taught in 90-minute sessions once a week to each grade level for 12 weeks. Data collected at pre- and postintervention included dietary intake via food frequency questionnaire (FFQ), anthropometric measures [BMI, waist circumference (WC)], body fat, and fasting blood samples.
Results: LA Sprouts participants had significantly greater reductions in BMI z-scores (0.1-vs. 0.04-point decrease, respectively; P = 0.01) and WC (−1.2 cm vs. no change; P < 0.001). Fewer LA Sprouts participants had the metabolic syndrome (MetSyn) after the intervention than before, while the number of controls with MetSyn increased. LA Sprouts participants had improvements in dietary fiber intake (+3.5% vs. −15.5%; P = 0.04) and less decreases in vegetable intake (−3.6% vs. −26.4%; P = 0.04). Change in fruit intake before and after the intervention did not significantly differ between LA Sprouts and control subjects.
Conclusions: LA Sprouts was effective in reducing obesity and metabolic risk.