General and specific graphic health warning labels reduce willingness to consume sugar-sweetened beverages

Predicting discretionary food consumption using temporal self-regulation theory and food reward sensitivity

Discretionary foods account for over a third of the average adult's total daily energy intake. But its excess consumption is a risk factor for obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and other diet-related diseases. This study aimed to use temporal self-regulation theory (intention, past behaviour, habit, self-regulatory capacity) and food reward sensitivity to identify predictors of discretionary food consumption. Two hundred and seventy-three participants aged between 18 and 80 (M = 42.55, SD = 17.07) comprising of mostly females (79.5%) and those residing in Australia (93.4%), completed a two-part online survey, one week apart. Participants completed measures of intention, past behaviour, habit, self-regulatory capacity, food reward sensitivity and demographic information at time one, and discretionary food consumption at time two. Data was analysed using a hierarchical multiple regression analysis. All variables in combination accounted for a significant 40.3% of the variance in discretionary food consumption (R2 = 0.40, p < .001). However, past behaviour and intention were the only unique significant predictors of discretionary food consumption. No significant moderation effects found. Findings offer insight into the motivators of discretionary food consumption, which can inform the development of effective interventions to reduce discretionary food consumption. Past behaviour should be considered, and intention targeted in interventions to reduce discretionary food consumption.

Neural mechanisms of expert persuasion on willingness to pay for sugar

Introduction: Sugar consumption is associated with many negative health consequences. It is, therefore, important to understand what can effectively influence individuals to consume less sugar. We recently showed that a healthy eating call by a health expert can significantly decrease the willingness to pay (WTP) for sugar-containing food. Here, we investigate which aspects of neural responses to the same healthy eating call can predict the efficacy of expert persuasion.

Methods: Forty-five healthy participants performed two blocks of a bidding task, in which they had to bid on sugar-containing, sugar-free and non-edible products, while their electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. In between the two blocks, they listened to a healthy eating call by a nutritionist emphasizing the risks of sugar consumption.

Results: We found that after listening to the healthy eating call, participants significantly decreased their WTP for sugar-containing products. Moreover, a higher intersubject correlation of EEG (a measure of engagement) during listening to the healthy eating call resulted in a larger decrease in WTP for sugar-containing food. Whether or not a participant’s valuation of a product was highly influenced by the healthy eating call could also be predicted by spatiotemporal patterns of EEG responses to the healthy eating call, using a machine learning classification model. Finally, the healthy eating call increased the amplitude of the P300 component of the visual event-related potential in response to sugar-containing food.

Disussion: Overall, our results shed light on the neural basis of expert persuasion and demonstrate that EEG is a powerful tool to design and assess health-related advertisements before they are released to the public.

The role of environmental cues in sugar-sweetened beverage consumption using a temporal self-regulation theory framework

Sugar-sweetened beverage consumption is related to adverse health outcomes such as obesity and Type 2 diabetes. The present research further examined the utility of the temporal self-regulation theory in predicting sugar-sweetened beverage consumption. In addition, the research aimed to identify salient cues that trigger intake. Two-hundred and eighty-seven participants were recruited using convenience sampling in US and Australian populations. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were used, and the final model accounted for 27.1% of the variance in consumption, providing partial support for the temporal self-regulation theory (ƒ² = 0.37). Intention accounted for a significant 7.0% of variance (R² = 0.07, p < .001), behavioural prepotency variables (past behaviour, habit, and cues) together combined for an additional 15.1% of variance (R² = 0.15, p < .001), but neither measure of self-regulatory capacity (trait self-control, inhibition) was a significant predictor. No cues emerged as unique predictors, however the findings suggest that consumption may be influenced by a combination of cues across different situations. Behavioural prepotency moderated the intention-behaviour relationship such that as behavioural prepotency increased, the greater the influence intention had on behaviour. Further support for the role of both intention and automatic processes in sugar-sweetened beverage consumption was garnered, but more research is needed to identify when specific cues influence consumption most.

Decoding explicit and implicit representations of health and taste attributes of foods in the human brain

Obesity has become a significant problem word-wide and is strongly linked to poor food choices. Even in healthy individuals, taste perceptions often drive dietary decisions more strongly than healthiness. This study tested whether health and taste representations can be directly decoded from brain activity, both when explicitly considered, and when implicitly processed for decision-making. We used multivariate support vector regression for event-related potentials (as measured by the electroencephalogram) to estimate a regression model predicting ratings of tastiness and healthiness for each participant, based on their neural activity occurring in the first second of food cue processing. In Experiment 1, 37 healthy participants viewed images of various foods and explicitly rated their tastiness and healthiness. In Experiment 2, 89 healthy participants completed a similar rating task, followed by an additional experimental phase, in which they indicated their desire to consume snack foods with no explicit instruction to consider tastiness or healthiness. In Experiment 1 both attributes could be decoded, with taste information being available earlier than health. In Experiment 2, both dimensions were also decodable, and their significant decoding preceded the decoding of decisions (i.e., desire to consume the food). However, in Experiment 2, health representations were decodable earlier than taste representations. These results suggest that health information is activated in the brain during the early stages of dietary decisions, which is promising for designing obesity interventions aimed at quickly activating health awareness.