Exploring within-meal variety to promote appeal of home-cooked meals in older adults.

Undernutrition is highly prevalent in older adults and poses a major threat to physical and mental wellbeing. To foster healthy eating (and healthy aging), strategies are needed to improve dietary quality of older adults. In this study, the feasibility of increasing food variety in home-cooked meals is explored as strategy to promote meat and vegetable consumption in community dwelling older adults. Adults aged 50 years or older (N = 253) evaluated pictures of traditional Dutch dinner meals with more or less variety in the vegetable or meat component in an online questionnaire. Specifically, four different variety 'levels' were presented: (1) no variety, (2) meat variety, (3) vegetable variety, and (4) variety in both meat and vegetables (mixed). Participants indicated for each meal picture how much they would like the meal, whether it represented an ideal portion size, and whether they would be able and willing to prepare the meal. We expected that with increasing variety, liking and ideal portion size would increase, while ability and willingness to prepare the meals would decrease. Results showed that the meals with meat variety and mixed variety were liked less than meals with vegetable variety or no variety. Participants were all highly willing to prepare the meals, but they were less willing to prepare the meals with meat variety and mixed variety compared to the meals with vegetable variety and no variety. All meals were evaluated as being too large, but the meals with vegetable variety and mixed variety were evaluated as more oversized than the meals without variety and with meat variety. These results suggest that encouraging older adults to include variety in home-cooked meals might be more challenging than anticipated.

Food rejection and the relation with category-based induction and memory in young children.

BACKGROUND: Childhood rejection of fruits and vegetables (F/V) has been associated with an immature food categorization system, characterized by difficulties in accurately categorizing and making inductions about foods. This may result in variations in the kind of category-based induction children use, such as relying on the color of a fruit/vegetable. Research indicates that children who reject food frequently tend to prioritize perceptual features like color and shape over abstract features, such as the type of food (e.g., tomato) when making food-related inductions. The way children categorize food can also impact what they remember about foods. Food rejection may therefore be related to better memory for perceptual features and diminished memory for abstract features. To explore this further, a pre-registered study was conducted to examine how category-based induction and memory relate to each other, and to children's food rejection. METHODS: 107 children aged 4-6 years old performed a category-based induction and memory task related to F/V, based on color and shape (perceptual features), and type of food (abstract feature). A vegetable photo task measured vegetable acceptance, and parents completed the Child Food Rejection Scale (CFRS). RESULTS: Children generally used color-based induction and displayed better memory for F/V color. Performance on the two tasks was related: higher type-based induction for F/V was linked to better memory for the type of F/V. However, there were no associations found with food rejection. CONCLUSION: Which category young children use for inductive reasoning about food, is related to what they remember best about food. Nevertheless, our study did not establish a relationship between an immature food categorization system and food rejection. Other factors, such as food familiarity, might play a stronger role in children's food acceptance.

Child characteristic correlates of food rejection in preschool children: A narrative review.

Dietary habits formed in early childhood are key for establishing a healthy diet later in life. Picky eating and food neophobia - the two main forms of food rejection in young children - form an important barricade to establishing such healthy habits. Understanding these types of food rejection is thus essential for promoting healthy eating behaviour in both children and adults. To this end, the present narrative review aims to provide an overview of food rejection research in preschool-aged children, focusing on recent advances in the cognitive literature. Specifically, we evaluate the link between children's cognitive development, chemosensory perception and affective evaluation of food, food knowledge, decision-making strategies, anxiety and disgust sensitivity, and food rejection behaviour. Longitudinal and experimental studies are necessary to establish how the relationships between food rejection and cognitive processes develop over time and to determine their causal directions.

Choice-induced tasting. Evaluating the effect of choice on children's acceptance of an unfamiliar vegetable.

Children's vegetable intake is in general below recommendations. It is known that self-selection of vegetables out of multiple options can increase intake in children. However, it is not clear if this effect is driven by a pre-existing preference for the selected food, or purely by having a choice. Allowing children to choose could create a positive bias and endorse feelings of autonomy, which could increase acceptance of the food and promote intake. The aim of the present pre-registered study was to investigate the effect of choice in promoting the acceptance of an unfamiliar vegetable during a blind-choice task. Children aged 4-5 years old (n = 161) were randomly assigned to the choice or no-choice condition. Each child was presented with three closed cups, containing a vegetable. The children were unaware that the cups contained the same vegetable, a piece of raw celeriac. In the choice condition, the children were able to choose a cup themselves whereas in the no-choice condition, the experimenter made the decision. We hypothesized that children in the choice condition would show more acceptance of the vegetable compared to children in the no-choice condition and that higher levels of picky eating would lead to less vegetable acceptance. The results demonstrated that choice indeed significantly increased vegetable acceptance (4.7 ± 1.7 versus 4.0 ± 1.9 on a 6-point scale), irrespective of pickiness in eating. In addition, picky children showed less acceptance of the vegetable compared to non-picky children. The results of this study imply that choice is an important factor in promoting unfamiliar vegetable intake in young children. Including children in the decision process may be a practical strategy for educators and caregivers to increase children's vegetable intake.

Child-reported vegetable neophobia is associated with risk avoidance for distaste in children aged 4-15 years.

Children who are food neophobic and/or picky eaters often refuse intake of especially fruits and vegetables, thereby narrowing their dietary variety and impairing the quality of their food intake. In this preregistered study, we investigated whether picky eating and food neophobia are related to bitter taste sensitivity (PROP taster status) and risk avoidance for distaste. A total of 367 children (201 girls; M age = 8.7 years, range: 4-15 years) participated in the study. They completed the vegetable neophobia subscale of the fruit and vegetable neophobia instrument (FVNI). A caregiver completed the child food rejection scale (CFRS), a parent-report measure of food neophobia and picky eating. Children's bitter taste sensitivity was measured with a PROP (6-n-propylthiouracil) taste strip, and the children completed a modified Children's Gambling Task (Candy Gambling Game) to measure risk avoidance for distaste. In this task, children could select cards from a risky deck (chance of winning two tasty cherry-flavoured jelly beans, but also the risk of getting a distasteful soap-flavoured jelly bean) or a safe deck (chance of winning one tasty jelly bean or no jelly bean). The results show that picky eating and food neophobia (either parent- or self-reported) are not related to PROP taster status. However, children who self-reported higher levels of vegetable neophobia showed less risky choice behaviour in the Candy Gambling Game, although this relationship was not found with parent-reported food neophobia. We conclude that risk avoidance for distaste, but not taste function, is associated with children's self-reported food rejection tendencies. To broaden the food repertoire of children high in food neophobia, it might be useful to reduce the perceived risk of distaste, when introducing a novel food or meal.

Does labelling a food as 'light' vs. 'filling' influence intake and sensory-specific satiation?

Although several studies have investigated the influence of nutrition labelling on food intake, the effect of labels indicating a food's satiating power on food intake and sensory-specific satiation (SSS) is poorly understood. We investigated whether providing information about the satiating power of a meal affects intake and SSS. Participants (19 men and 18 women) consumed the same test meal of pasta salad ad libitum on two occasions, once described as 'light' and once as 'filling'. SSS was determined as the change in liking of the flavor and desire to eat the test meal before and after consumption, compared to seven uneaten foods. As hypothesized, intake increased by a mean (±SD) of 31 ± 59 g and 42 ± 81 kcal when the meal was labelled 'light' as opposed to 'filling' (p < 0.01). After eating, ratings for both liking and desire to eat decreased significantly more for the test meal than for the uneaten control foods (p < 0.001), demonstrating SSS. These relative changes in liking and desire to eat did not differ between the label conditions, despite differences in intake. Furthermore, accounting for amount consumed, the magnitude of SSS did not differ between the label conditions, which suggests that it did not explain the effect of the labels on intake. This study shows that labels indicating the satiating power of a meal can affect intake, warranting caution in the use of such labels on products intended to reduce intake.

Fluctuations in attentional bias for food and the role of executive control.

Research has shown repeatedly that overweight and obesity are associated with more fluctuations in attentional bias (AB), as reflected in trial-level bias scores (TL-BS). More specifically, people with a high BMI more frequently alternate their attention towards and away from food over time. The current study proposed and tested a model on the mechanism behind the positive association between variability of AB for food and BMI. It was hypothesized that poor executive control (poor response inhibition and lower sustained attention) would be related to both higher BMI and more fluctuations in AB for food and this would, at least partly, explain the significant relationship between variability of AB for food and BMI. To test our hypotheses, 99 female participants completed both an online food dot-probe task and an online stop-signal task. It was found that response inhibition was significantly related to BMI, whereas, contrary to our hypotheses, variability of AB for food was not related to BMI nor to executive control. In conclusion, this study revealed a relation between poor inhibitory control and higher BMI. However, a role of executive control in fluctuations in attention for food could not be established.

Filthy fruit! Confirmation bias and novel food.

Fruit and vegetable consumption is worldwide too low, resulting in poor diet quality and health-related problems. A cognitive factor that might contribute to this low consumption is confirmation bias. Confirmation bias has been established in anxiety research and comprises the tendency to search for reinforcing negative information, while ignoring counter attitudinal information. If applicable to food, asking for negative food information reinforces the negative attitude and decreases the willingness to try (novel) food. The aim of the current study was twofold. First, to examine if confirmation bias translates to food stimuli. Second, to investigate if this bias is exaggerated in persons with higher levels of food neophobia. To this end, 117 participants (age M = 21.45, SD = 4.48) carried out an online study. They filled in the food neophobia scale (FNS) and performed a search for additional information scale (SAIS) task. Four novel fruits were used, two looking tasteful (pomelo and rose apple) and two looking non-tasteful (black sapote and noni fruit). Participants rated their willingness to eat these fruits and subsequently could indicate how eager they were to receive positive or negative information regarding that fruit. The results indicated that the participants were more willing to try the tasteful looking fruits than the non-tasteful. Additionally, higher levels of food neophobia coincided with less willingness to eat all fruits. Confirmation bias was observed, more negative information was requested for the non-tasteful than for the tasteful fruits. This bias was not related to levels of food neophobia. These results are important as confirmation bias might make people even more negative towards novel foods and could contribute to even less fruit and vegetable consumption, especially when they look less appetizing.

Food Palatability Directs Our Eyes Across Contexts.

It is often believed that attentional bias (AB) for food is a stable trait of certain groups, like restrained eaters. However, empirical evidence from this domain is inconsistent. High-calorie foods are double-faceted, as they are both a source of reward and of weight/health concern. Their meaning might depend on the food-related context (i.e., focus on health or on enjoyment), which in turn could affect AB for food. This study primed 85 females with hedonic, healthy, and neutral contexts successively and examined whether food-related context affected AB for food and if effects were moderated by dietary restraint. Both the mean tendencies of AB for food and variability of AB for food were assessed in a food dot-probe task with a recording of both reaction times and eye movements. Contrary to our hypotheses, AB for food was not significantly affected by either context or the interaction between context and dietary restraint. Instead, liking of the presented food stimuli was related to longer initial fixations and longer dwell time on the food stimuli. In addition, in line with prior research, body mass index (BMI) was correlated with variability of AB for food instead of mean AB for food. In conclusion, this study did not find any support that AB for food is dependent on food-related context, but interestingly, reaction time-based variability of AB for food seems to relate to BMI, and eye movement-based mean AB seems to relate to appetitive motivation.

Sensory-specific satiety, the variety effect and physical context: Does change of context during a meal enhance food intake?

Food variety has been shown to increase food intake, and sensory-specific satiety (a relative decrease in pleasantness of a food as it is consumed) has been proposed as the mechanism through which variety increases consumption. The aim of this study was to investigate whether variation of eating context can add to experienced meal variety and hence increase consumption even further. A total of 128 participants were assigned to one of four conditions in which they first ate a specific food item (ad libitum) until satiated, after which they consumed a second course ad libitum of either the same or a different food in either the same context or in a different context. We hypothesized that, compared to eating the same food in the same context during the second course, introducing a different food item or changing the context for the second course increases consumption (of the second course), and changing both food and context enhances food intake to a greater degree than only changing the food or changing the context. Results indicated that food variety (introducing a different food) significantly increased consumption in the second course, but that a context switch did not enhance consumption. These results suggest that there is little reason to believe that sensory-specific satiety is context specific.

Taste the texture. The relation between subjective tactile sensitivity, mouthfeel and picky eating in young adults.

Selective or picky eating can be an obstacle for a varied diet. One reason why people reject certain foods is because they do not like the texture. Several studies show that in children tactile sensitivity is related to pickiness in eating. Children who do not like the feel of sand or of slimy substances with their hands also reject more kinds of food, presumably because the children are more sensitive to the mouthfeel of several food textures. There is however hardly any research on the role of tactile sensitivity in adult food acceptance. Two important questions therefore are: Is tactile sensitivity related to picky eating in adults and if so, does mouthfeel mediate the relation between tactile sensitivity and pickiness? In the current study, picky eating, subjective tactile sensitivity, and evaluation of mouthfeel were measured in 87 undergraduate students. It appeared that the three measures are moderately related, with mouthfeel mediating the relation between subjective tactile sensitivity and pickiness in eating. These results show that in adults too, tactile sensitivity plays a role in the acceptance of a larger variety of foods. This means that when aiming to change or improve dietary quality of adults, acceptance of food texture should be taken into account.

Dynamics of attentional bias for food in adults, children, and restrained eaters.

OBJECTIVE: Empirical evidence of attentional bias (AB) for food in obese and restrained eaters is contradictory. It has been suggested that AB for food in obese people might reflect both food craving and food-related concerns. Thus, AB for food may be a dynamic process. METHODS: A new computational methodology (Zvielli, Bernstein, & Koster, 2015) was adopted to reanalyze the reaction time (RT) and dwell time of three food-related dot-probe task with eye-tracking studies (Werthmann et al., 2015; Werthmann et al., 2011, 2013). This new computing method uses a sequence of bias scores to express the dynamic changes of AB. Moreover, the variability of RT on filler trials was also calculated. The critical groups in these studies were overweight/obese adults, obese children, and healthy-weight restrained eaters. RESULTS: Both the variability of AB for food stimuli and the variability of RT on filler could significantly predict the variance in body mass index (BMI). When controlling for the variability of RT on filler trials and mean AB score, larger variability of AB for food stimuli still existed in obese children and aggregated dataset. The variability of AB for food stimuli demonstrated no significant correlation with restrained eating scores and dwell time variability. CONCLUSIONS: Overweight/obese individuals are characterized by more variability in attention, and this variability is mainly unspecific. It probably reflects less effective executive control ability.

Effect of dietary restraint and mood state on attentional processing of food cues.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Research linking dietary restraint to attentional bias toward food cues has been equivocal, suggesting that dietary restraint may only influence attentional processing of food in certain contexts. The present study examined whether negative mood strengthens the association between dietary restraint and attention bias for food. METHODS: Healthy female participants were randomized to either a neutral (n = 47) or negative mood (n = 49) induction. Participants then completed a visual search task featuring targets displayed adjacent to pictures of palatable food, musical instruments, or non-instrument filler objects. Attention bias for food was operationalized as shorter response latency when the target appeared adjacent to palatable food as compared to musical instruments. Attention bias was examined in a 2 (mood condition) × 2 (picture: food vs. instrument) × 2 (target location: match vs. mismatch) repeated measures ANCOVA, with dietary restraint as a continuous covariate and response latency as the dependent variable. RESULTS: Though there was no evidence of an interaction between mood condition and dietary restraint, mood had an influence on attention allocation. Contrary to study hypotheses, individuals in the neutral mood condition, but not those in the negative mood condition, responded in a manner indicative of bias toward food. LIMITATIONS: Additional research is necessary to validate the experimental task used in the present study to assess food-specific attentional bias. CONCLUSIONS: Neutral mood may be associated with enhanced processing of palatable food cues. Critically, results do not support the hypothesized link between negative mood and attention bias for food.

A randomized controlled trial of inhibitory control training for the reduction of alcohol consumption in problem drinkers.

OBJECTIVE: We conducted a randomized controlled trial to compare the effects of three types of Internet-delivered Inhibitory Control Training (ICT) with each other and with an active control intervention on alcohol consumption in a community sample of problem drinkers. METHOD: Two hundred and 46 heavy drinkers, who were motivated to reduce their alcohol consumption (mean age 41.32, 130 female) self-monitored their alcohol consumption for 1 week before being randomized to receive 1 of 3 variants of ICT (Associative No-Go, Associative Stop Signal, General Inhibition) or an active control. Participants then completed up to 14 ICT/control sessions on the Internet over a 4-week period, while regularly recording their alcohol consumption. RESULTS: There were significant reductions in alcohol consumption across all groups over the 4-week training period (main effect of time, F(2, 402) = 77.12, p < .01, ηp2 = .28, BF10 > 99), however there were no differences between ICT groups, or between ICT groups and the active control group (Group × Time interaction, F(6, 402) = 1.10, p = .36, ηp2 = .02, BF10 = 0.03). Contrary to hypotheses, there were no changes in general inhibitory control, the disinhibiting effects of alcohol cues, or alcohol affective associations after ICT. CONCLUSIONS: In this study, which attempted to translate findings from proof-of-concept laboratory studies into a viable behavior change intervention, we found that multiple sessions of ICT delivered over the Internet did not help heavy drinkers to reduce their alcohol consumption beyond nonspecific effects associated with taking part in a trial. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Feed the Alien! The Effects of a Nutrition Instruction Game on Children's Nutritional Knowledge and Food Intake.

OBJECTIVE: Serious games are a promising venue to increase children's nutritional knowledge in an entertaining format. The aim of this study was to test the short-term effectiveness of the Alien Health Game, a videogame designed to teach elementary school children about nutrition and healthy food choices. MATERIALS AND METHODS: To examine the effects of the Alien Health Game, an experimental design with a single between-subjects factor (experimental condition vs. active control condition) was used. A total of 108 Dutch children (10-13 years; 58 boys) were randomly assigned to either play Alien Health using the Kinect sensor for two consecutive days, for 1 hour of gameplay (experimental condition; n = 50), or a web-based nutrition game for the same period (active control condition; n = 58). Participants' nutritional knowledge was assessed at pretest, immediate, and at 2-week follow-up. Food intake was assessed at immediate and 2-week follow-up. RESULTS: Participants who played Alien Health had better knowledge of the five most important macronutrients of foods at immediate posttest, but not at follow-up. Participants were better able to distinguish the healthier food item out of two options over time, but this effect did not differ for those in the experimental versus the active control condition. No differences in food intake, neither in the consumption of nutrient-dense or energy-dense foods, were found between children playing both games. CONCLUSION: A brief game-based intervention like the Alien Health Game has the potential to improve children's nutritional knowledge in the short term, but may not be strong enough to increase nutritional knowledge and actual eating behavior in the long term. Further investigation is warranted before this game is applied in future nutrition education programs.

Do daily fluctuations in inhibitory control predict alcohol consumption? An ecological momentary assessment study.

RATIONALE: Deficient inhibitory control is predictive of increased alcohol consumption in the laboratory; however, little is known about this relationship in naturalistic, real-world settings. OBJECTIVES: In the present study, we implemented ecological momentary assessment methods to investigate the relationship between inhibitory control and alcohol consumption in the real world. METHODS: Heavy drinkers who were motivated to reduce their alcohol consumption (N = 100) were loaned a smartphone which administered a stop signal task twice per day at random intervals between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. for 2 weeks. Each day, participants also recorded their planned and actual alcohol consumption and their subjective craving and mood. We hypothesised that day-to-day fluctuations in inhibitory control (stop signal reaction time) would predict alcohol consumption, over and above planned consumption and craving. RESULTS: Multilevel modelling demonstrated that daily alcohol consumption was predicted by planned consumption (ß = .816; 95% CI .762-.870) and craving (ß = .022; 95% CI .013-.031), but inhibitory control did not predict any additional variance in alcohol consumption. However, secondary analyses demonstrated that the magnitude of deterioration in inhibitory control across the day was a significant predictor of increased alcohol consumption on that day (ß = .007; 95% CI .004-.011), after controlling for planned consumption and craving. CONCLUSIONS: These findings demonstrate that short-term fluctuations in inhibitory control predict alcohol consumption, which suggests that transient fluctuations in inhibition may be a risk factor for heavy drinking episodes.

Taste the feeling or feel the tasting: Tactile exposure to food texture promotes food acceptance.

The texture of food can be a reason why children reject it: It matters if food is crispy, slimy, smooth or has pips and bits in it. In general, mere exposure is the best method to increase acceptance of food: becoming more familiar with a food by repeated exposure increases liking for it. However, exposure to texture can be difficult, as children can be reluctant to try tasting it. In the current study, it is tested if acceptance of a food with a specific texture is improved after exposure to the feel of it, with hands only. Sixty-six children (between 3 and 10 years old) were randomly assigned to either the exposure or control condition. In the exposure condition, children played with an colourless and odourless jelly with their hands and in the control group, children played a board game. Afterwards, children were asked to taste 3 desserts (in balanced order): smooth strawberry yoghurt, strawberry yoghurt with pieces and strawberry jelly. Results showed that the children in the exposure condition ate specifically more of the jelly dessert - the texture of which they had been pre-exposed to - compared to the children in control condition. No group differences were found for the other two desserts. The results imply that feeling the texture of a food with hands increases the acceptance of food with the same texture. Playing with food with hands seems therefore be a first step in getting familiar with food and might help to increase variety of food intake.

Electrodermal responses during appetitive conditioning are sensitive to contingency instruction ambiguity.

Studies on human appetitive conditioning using food rewards can benefit from including psychophysiological outcome measures. The present study tested whether the skin conductance response can function as a measure of differential responding in an appetitive conditioning paradigm including an acquisition and extinction phase, and examined which time window during a trial is most sensitive to conditioning effects. As a secondary aim, the effects of ambiguous vs. non-ambiguous contingency instructions on conditioned responses (skin conductance responses, US expectancies, chocolate desires, and CS evaluations) were assessed. Results indicated differential skin conductance responses in an anticipatory time window and during unexpected omission of the US in early extinction. Interestingly however, anticipatory responses were only found for participants who received ambiguous contingency instructions - possibly indicating a call for additional processing resources in response to the ambiguous CS+. Further, ambiguous instructions slowed the extinction of US expectancies but did not influence chocolate desires and CS evaluations. It is concluded that skin conductance can function as a sensitive measure of differential responding in appetitive conditioning, though its sensitivity might depend on the specific task context.