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Dominguez-Viera ME, de Vries Mecheva M, Nguyen T, van den Berg M. Relaxed minds for healthier food choice at school: A field experiment in southern Mexico. Appetite 2024; 200:107529. [PMID: 38801995 DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2024.107529] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/11/2024] [Revised: 04/12/2024] [Accepted: 05/24/2024] [Indexed: 05/29/2024]
Abstract
Stress leads to unhealthy food choices since the school-age stage. Yet, there is limited evidence particularly in low- and middle-income countries regarding the impact of stress-reduction strategies on school-age children's food choices. Such aspects were crucial during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, which exacerbated psychological distress and unhealthier food choices among children. Two years after the pandemic began, we conducted a field experiment in southern Mexico to assess the impact of stress-reduction strategies on the food choices of over 1400 children aged 9-12. Half of the school-classes in the sample were randomly assigned to a stress reduction strategy namely meditation, which comprised six audios with basic relaxation techniques and intuitive messages to guide food choices. Additionally, all participants received information signalling that an amaranth snack was nutritious (i.e., the healthy snack), which was paired with a chocolate bar (i.e., the unhealthy snack) as part of a snack choice experiment. Students that practiced meditation were slightly more likely to choose the healthy snack than those in the control group, but the effect was not statistically significant. Upon collecting their snack, students had the chance to exchange their original choice for the other snack. Students that meditated were more likely to exchange their originally chosen "unhealthy snack" towards the healthy snack than students in the control group. The meditation program effectively reduced chronic stress among treated children. The effect was larger among students attending schools in lower-income areas. Our study sheds some light on the challenges to translate an improved psychological well-being into healthier food choices at school.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marcos E Dominguez-Viera
- Development Economics Group, Wageningen University & Research, Droevendaalsesteeg 4, 6708 PB, Wageningen, Netherlands.
| | - Margarita de Vries Mecheva
- The International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Kortenaerkade 12, 2518 AX, Den Haag, Netherlands
| | - Trang Nguyen
- Development Economics Group, Wageningen University & Research, Droevendaalsesteeg 4, 6708 PB, Wageningen, Netherlands
| | - Marrit van den Berg
- Development Economics Group, Wageningen University & Research, Droevendaalsesteeg 4, 6708 PB, Wageningen, Netherlands
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Crone EA, Bol T, Braams BR, de Rooij M, Franke B, Franken I, Gazzola V, Güroğlu B, Huizenga H, Hulshoff Pol H, Keijsers L, Keysers C, Krabbendam L, Jansen L, Popma A, Stulp G, van Atteveldt N, van Duijvenvoorde A, Veenstra R. Growing Up Together in Society (GUTS): A team science effort to predict societal trajectories in adolescence and young adulthood. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2024; 67:101403. [PMID: 38852381 PMCID: PMC11214182 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2024.101403] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/01/2024] [Revised: 05/09/2024] [Accepted: 06/04/2024] [Indexed: 06/11/2024] Open
Abstract
Our society faces a great diversity of opportunities for youth. The 10-year Growing Up Together in Society (GUTS) program has the long-term goal to understand which combination of measures best predict societal trajectories, such as school success, mental health, well-being, and developing a sense of belonging in society. Our leading hypothesis is that self-regulation is key to how adolescents successfully navigate the demands of contemporary society. We aim to test these questions using socio-economic, questionnaire (including experience sampling methods), behavioral, brain (fMRI, sMRI, EEG), hormonal, and genetic measures in four large cohorts including adolescents and young adults. Two cohorts are designed as test and replication cohorts to test the developmental trajectory of self-regulation, including adolescents of different socioeconomic status thereby bridging individual, family, and societal perspectives. The third cohort consists of an entire social network to examine how neural and self-regulatory development influences and is influenced by whom adolescents and young adults choose to interact with. The fourth cohort includes youth with early signs of antisocial and delinquent behavior to understand patterns of societal development in individuals at the extreme ends of self-regulation and societal participation, and examines pathways into and out of delinquency. We will complement the newly collected cohorts with data from existing large-scale population-based and case-control cohorts. The study is embedded in a transdisciplinary approach that engages stakeholders throughout the design stage, with a strong focus on citizen science and youth participation in study design, data collection, and interpretation of results, to ensure optimal translation to youth in society.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eveline A Crone
- Erasmus School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands; Leiden University, Institute of Psychology, the Netherlands.
| | - Thijs Bol
- Department of Sociology, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
| | - Barbara R Braams
- Department of Clinical, Neuro, and Developmental Psychology, Faculty of Behavioral and Movement Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands
| | - Mark de Rooij
- Leiden University, Institute of Psychology, the Netherlands
| | - Barbara Franke
- Radboud University Medical Center, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Departments of Cognitive Neuroscience and Human Genetics, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
| | - Ingmar Franken
- Erasmus School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands
| | - Valeria Gazzola
- Social Brain Lab, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (KNAW) and University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
| | - Berna Güroğlu
- Leiden University, Institute of Psychology, the Netherlands
| | - Hilde Huizenga
- Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
| | | | - Loes Keijsers
- Erasmus School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands
| | - Christian Keysers
- Social Brain Lab, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (KNAW) and University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
| | - Lydia Krabbendam
- Department of Clinical, Neuro, and Developmental Psychology, Faculty of Behavioral and Movement Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands
| | - Lucres Jansen
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry & Psychosocial Care, AmsterdamUMC and Research Institute Amsterdam Public Health, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
| | - Arne Popma
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry & Psychosocial Care, AmsterdamUMC and Research Institute Amsterdam Public Health, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
| | - Gert Stulp
- University of Groningen, Department of Sociology / Inter-University Center for Social Science Theory and Methodology, Groningen, the Netherlands
| | - Nienke van Atteveldt
- Department of Clinical, Neuro, and Developmental Psychology, Faculty of Behavioral and Movement Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands
| | | | - René Veenstra
- University of Groningen, Department of Sociology / Inter-University Center for Social Science Theory and Methodology, Groningen, the Netherlands
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Held LK, Cracco E, Bardi L, Kiraga M, Cristianelli E, Brass M, Abrahamse EL, Braem S. Associative Visuomotor Learning Using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Induces Stimulus-Response Interference. J Cogn Neurosci 2024; 36:522-533. [PMID: 38165734 DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_02100] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/04/2024]
Abstract
Classical conditioning states that the systematic co-occurrence of a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus can cause the neutral stimulus to, over time, evoke the same response as the unconditioned stimulus. On a neural level, Hebbian learning suggests that this type of learning occurs through changes in synaptic plasticity when two neurons are simultaneously active, resulting in increased connectivity between them. Inspired by associative learning theories, we here investigated whether the mere co-activation of visual stimuli and stimulation of the primary motor cortex using TMS would result in stimulus-response associations that can impact future behavior. During a learning phase, we repeatedly paired the presentation of a specific color (but not other colors) with a TMS pulse over the motor cortex. Next, participants performed a two-alternative forced-choice task where they had to categorize simple shapes and we studied whether the shapes' task-irrelevant color (and its potentially associated involuntary motor activity) affected the required motor response. Participants showed more errors on incongruent trials for stimuli that were previously paired with high intensity TMS pulses, but only when tested on the same day. Using a drift diffusion model for conflict tasks, we further demonstrate that this interference occurred early, and gradually increased as a function of associated TMS intensity. Taken together, our findings show that the human brain can learn stimulus-response associations using externally induced motor cortex stimulation. Although we were inspired by the Hebbian learning literature, future studies should investigate whether Hebbian or other learning processes were also what brought about this effect.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Lara Bardi
- Ghent University, Belgium
- Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod, Bron, France
- Université Claude Bernard, Lyon 1, Villeurbanne, France
| | | | | | - Marcel Brass
- Ghent University, Belgium
- Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Germany
| | - Elger L Abrahamse
- Tilburg University, The Netherlands
- Atlántico Medio University, Spain
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