Effect of source on trust of pulse nutrition information and perceived likelihood of following dietary guidance.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the present study was to examine how information source (control-no source, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), fictitious hospital, or fictitious social media) impacts perceptions of diet information. METHODS AND MEASURES: Participants (N = 537) completed an online survey in which they viewed one flyer containing dietary information and guidance on consuming pulses. The purported source of the flyer information was manipulated to create the 4 conditions. Participants rated the flyer in terms of perceived accuracy, trustworthiness, reliability, desirability for learning more from the source, and likelihood of following the advice. Attitudes, perceived control and norms, and past behavior were used to measure components of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). RESULTS: ANOVA results indicated that the USDA and hospital sources were perceived as more accurate, trustworthy, reliable, and more desirable to learn more from relative to control and social media. There were no differences in likelihood of following guidance depending on source. Multiple regression showed that measures of the TPB were predictors of likelihood of following advice. CONCLUSION: Overall, these findings suggest that trust in the source of information does not influence perceived likelihood of following dietary recommendations for pulses.

Effects of cardiovascular arousal on emotional experience.

Studies of arousal and emotion show that generalized physiological arousal can enhance emotional experience for a range of different emotions. Other research shows that different emotions may be associated with specific patterns of physiological reactivity. Together these findings suggest that while nonspecific autonomic activation can be sufficient in the generation of emotion, specific patterns of reactivity may appear once the emotion is established. This study aimed to test this hypothesis by examining the effects of generalized arousal on emotional experience, as well as the physiological responses associated with positive and negative emotions. One hundred and nine participants either sat or stood during the viewing of positive and negative film clips while emotion ratings and cardiorespiratory measures were taken. Those who stood during the videos reported greater levels of emotion than those who sat, indicating that generalized arousal due to standing heightened emotional experience. In addition, participants exhibited greater high-frequency heart rate variability and lower respiration rate during the negative video than the positive video, indicating that physiological reactivity differed between the positive and negative emotions. These results suggest that while patterns of physiological reactivity may be specific to individual emotions, nonspecific arousal is sufficient to enhance diverse emotions.

Incorporating the Dietary Guidelines for Americans Vegetable Recommendations into the Diet Alters Dietary Intake Patterns of Other Foods and Improves Diet Quality in Adults with Overweight and Obesity.

BACKGROUND: Understanding how vegetables are incorporated into the diet, especially in the types and amounts recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and how this alters dietary intake patterns is vital for developing targeted behavior change interventions. OBJECTIVE: To determine how a provision of vegetables was incorporated into the diet of adults with overweight and obesity; whether or not the provided vegetables displaced other foods; and what, if any, effect this had on diet quality and body weight and composition. DESIGN: This study investigated secondary outcomes from the Motivating Value of Vegetables Study, a community-based, randomized, parallel, nonblinded controlled trial. Participants were randomly assigned to a provided vegetable intervention or attention control group using a one to one allocation ratio. PARTICIPANTS/SETTING: Men and women with self-reported low vegetable consumption, aged 18 to 65 years, with a body mass index ≥25 were recruited from Grand Forks, ND, between October 2015 and September 2017. Only participants randomized to the provided vegetable intervention group (n = 51; attrition = 8%) were included in this secondary analysis. INTERVENTION: Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommended types and amounts of vegetables were provided weekly for 8 weeks. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: How the provided vegetables were incorporated into the diet was measured using daily self-report and 24-hour dietary recalls. Diet quality was assessed via the Healthy Eating Index 2015. Body weight and composition were measured before and after the intervention. STATISTICAL ANALYSES PERFORMED: Data were assessed using generalized linear mixed models where phase (pre, post) was the within-subject factor and subject was the random effect. RESULTS: Participants self-reported using 29% of the provided vegetables as substitutes for other foods. With the increase in vegetable consumption, there were decreases in total grains (mean difference ± standard deviation; -0.97 ± 3.23 oz-equivalents; P = 0.02), protein foods (-1.24 ± 3.86 oz-equivalents; P = 0.01), saturated fats (-6.44 ± 19.63 g; P = 0.02), and added sugars (-2.44 ± 6.78 tsp-equivalents; P = 0.02) consumed. Total Healthy Eating Index 2015 scores increased (+4.48 ± 9.63; P = 0.001) and dietary energy density decreased (-0.44 ± 0.52 kcal/g; P < 0.0001). There was no change in total energy intake or body weight and composition. CONCLUSIONS: Increasing vegetable consumption to meet Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommendations alters dietary intake patterns, improving diet quality and energy density. These findings highlight the importance of characterizing how individuals incorporate Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommendations into their diet.

Effects of self-affirmation on emotion and cardiovascular responses.

Self-affirmation is the act of focusing on important aspects of the self, such as personal values and characteristics. We used a within-participants design (N = 125) to examine cardiovascular reactivity and self-reported affective responses to the practice of self-affirmation. In the self-affirmation condition, we asked participants to write about their top-ranked personal value for 5 min and used a writing exercise unrelated to personal values in the control condition. The International Affective Picture System was used to induce positive and negative emotion. Results showed that participants had greater high frequency heart rate variability and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) when practicing self-affirmation. During negative emotion induction, self-affirmation also led to lower maximum heart rate, higher RSA, and lower ratings of negative affect. Our findings suggest that the act of focusing on an important aspect of self has beneficial effects on psychological and physiological well-being.

Gender differences in diet and social media: An explorative study.

This study aimed to investigate the impact of social media on perceptions of food-related content. We asked participants a series of questions about their diet, attitudes, and social media use. We also manipulated food photos posted on Instagram to reveal varying degrees of information from the social media app (no Instagram information, icons visible, number of likes visible, or caption visible). Participants rated the foods in these photos based on how healthy they perceived them to be and how likely they were to eat them. We then used a 2X4 MANOVA to test whether healthy, unhealthy, and neutral foods were perceived differently between genders and conditions. Results showed no effect of condition, but indicated that men rated unhealthy foods as significantly healthier than women did. We also found that women's perceived healthiness ratings of healthy foods were positively correlated with ratings of how likely they were to eat them; in contrast, there were no relationships between perceived health and likelihood of eating any foods for men. Finally, results of our social media use questions indicated that Facebook was the most popular website used for finding recipes. These findings suggest that while we did not see any between-condition differences, social media may be a factor in what people eat. Furthermore, gender may be a key factor in this relationship.