Food-Related Attentional Bias in Individuals with Normal Weight and Overweight: A Study with a Flicker Task

Self-Regulation in Eating Behaviors: The Role of Executive Function in Response to Food Stimuli

Human nutrition is characterized by both automatic and self-regulated processes. One of the dimensions that may be employed in monitoring eating behaviors is the cognitive control played by the executive functions (EFs). The role of EFs in affecting eating behaviors has been assessed in empirical studies, but further analyses are needed in a current society characterized by a food-abundant environment. Accordingly, this study attempted to evaluate the association between weight status and executive functions in response to food-related stimuli. One hundred and forty-four young adults took part in the study (25.7% in overweight condition). The participants completed a set of computerized cognitive tasks to assess cognitive and motor inhibition and working memory in two different conditions: (i) classic versions of the tasks and (ii) modified versions with food cues. The results indicate that food stimuli may influence executive performance and that there is an association between food cue-related executive functioning, particularly in the domain of motor inhibition, and working memory. These results suggest that self-regulation in nutrition may involve executive control. Although further studies are needed, this work suggests the importance of a multidimensional perspective in the analysis of eating behaviors and the relevance of EFs in monitoring our approach to food stimuli in an environmental context.

Adapting Minds: Exploring Cognition to Threatened Stimuli in the Post-COVID-19 Landscape Comparing Old and New Concerns about Pandemic

The global population has been significantly affected by the pandemic in terms of physical and mental health. According to transactional theory, individuals have undergone an adaptation process influenced by cognitive control abilities. Emotional responses to COVID-19-related stimuli may interfere with top-down attentional processes, thereby hindering adaptation. This study aimed to investigate the impact of COVID-19-related stimuli on attentional processing and to determine whether psychological factors could modulate these effects. A sample of 96 healthy undergraduate students participated in an emotional Stroop task in which they were presented with a series of stimuli, including both neutral and negative COVID-19-related as well as non-COVID-19 stimuli. COVID-19-related PTSD, as an index of distress (PTSS), and trait anxiety were evaluated. Results showed that participants were more accurate in identifying COVID-19-related stimuli compared to non-COVID-19 stimuli. Being female and having higher retrospective PTSS scores related to COVID-19 were predictive of faster reaction times for both neutral and negative COVID-19-related stimuli. This heightened attentional bias toward COVID-19-related stimuli suggests that individuals may be more sensitive to stimuli associated with the pandemic. The results suggest that the association between COVID-19 stimuli and attentional biases extends beyond emotional valence, being retrospectively influenced by mental health, suggesting potential pathways to future mental health challenges.

The associations between attentional bias to food cues, parent-report appetitive traits, and concurrent adiposity among adolescents

OBJECTIVE

To assess whether attentional bias to food cues and appetitive traits are independently and interactively associated with adiposity in adolescents.

METHOD

Eighty-five adolescents, 14-17-years had their attentional bias to food images measured in a sated state by computing eye tracking measures of attention (first fixation duration, cumulative fixation duration) to food and control distractor images that bordered a computer game. Parents reported adolescent appetitive traits including the food approach domains of enjoyment of food, food responsiveness, emotional overeating, and the food avoidance domains of satiety responsiveness and emotional overeating through the Children's Eating Behavior Questionnaire.

RESULTS

First fixation bias to food cues was positively associated with enjoyment of food, and negatively associated with satiety responsiveness. In a series of regression models adjusted for relevant covariates, first fixation bias to food cues (β = 0.83, p = 0.007), higher food responsiveness (β = 0.74, p < 0.001), higher emotional overeating (β = 0.51, p = 0.002), and a composite appetite score (β = 1.42, p < 0.001) were each significantly associated with greater BMI z-scores. In models assessing the interactive effects between attentional bias and appetitive traits, higher first fixation bias to food cues interacted synergistically with food responsiveness and emotional overeating in relation to BMI z-score. A synergistic interaction between first fixation bias to food cues and the composite appetite score in relation to BMI z-score was also observed.

CONCLUSION

Individuals with high attentional bias to food cues and obesogenic appetitive traits may be particularly susceptible to weight gain.

Deep neural network for prediction of diet quality among doctors and nurses in North China during the COVID-19 pandemic

Objective

The COVID-19 pandemic has placed unprecedented pressure on front-line healthcare workers, leading to poor health status, especially diet quality. This study aimed to develop a diet quality prediction model and determine the predictive effects of personality traits, socioeconomic status, lifestyles, and individual and working conditions on diet quality among doctors and nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods

A total of 5,013 doctors and nurses from thirty-nine COVID-19 designated hospitals provided valid responses in north China in 2022. Participants' data related to social-demographic characteristics, lifestyles, sleep quality, personality traits, burnout, work-related conflicts, and diet quality were collected with questionnaires. Deep Neural Network (DNN) was applied to develop a diet quality prediction model among doctors and nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Results

The mean score of diet quality was 46.14 ± 15.08; specifically, the mean scores for variety, adequacy, moderation, and overall balance were 14.33 ± 3.65, 17.99 ± 5.73, 9.41 ± 7.33, and 4.41 ± 2.98, respectively. The current study developed a DNN model with a 21-30-28-1 network framework for diet quality prediction. The DNN model achieved high prediction efficacy, and values of R2, MAE, MSE, and RMSE were 0.928, 0.048, 0.004, and 0.065, respectively. Among doctors and nurses in north China, the top five predictors in the diet quality prediction model were BMI, poor sleep quality, work-family conflict, negative emotional eating, and nutrition knowledge.

Conclusion

During the COVID-19 pandemic, poor diet quality is prevalent among doctors and nurses in north China. Machine learning models can provide an automated identification mechanism for the prediction of diet quality. This study suggests that integrated interventions can be a promising approach to improving diet quality among doctors and nurses, particularly weight management, sleep quality improvement, work-family balance, decreased emotional eating, and increased nutrition knowledge.

The perceived role of food and eating among turkish women with obesity: A qualitative analysis

The studies show the link between Body Mass Index (BMI) and higher food responsiveness despite negative physical, social, and psychological outcomes. The descriptive studies examining what makes individuals with higher BMI values more likely to respond to food are limited, while there is none in the Turkish sample. This study aims to understand the subjective relationship of women with obesity/overweight related to food in Turkish culture. Turkish adult women (aged 22-54) who have BMI higher than 25 (overweight/obesity) participated in semi-structured interviews focusing on how they relate to food and obesity. Participants were reached through Ankara Etlik Zübeyde Hanım Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital Obesity outpatient service. Audio-recorded interviews were analyzed predominantly inductively by thematic analysis principles. Analysis of these interviews reflected three main themes: (1) the act of eating: "I don't know why I eat when I'm full", (2) being overweight: "I am the kind of person who constantly tries to lose weight", and (3) sources of distress. The results indicated the dynamic relationship between the desire to eat, chronic stress, perceived unavailability of close ones, and low sense of self-worth among adult women with obesity/overweight. The other indication is the effect of culture in shaping the relationship dynamics, the sources of distress, and the eating patterns in developing and maintaining obesity.

High-Level Executive Functions: A Possible Role of Sex and Weight Condition in Planning and Decision-Making Performances

Evidence indicates an association between executive functioning and increased weight, with different patterns ascribed to individual differences (sex, age, lifestyles). This study reports on the relationship between high-level executive functions and body weight. Sixty-five young adults participated in the study: 29 participants (14 males, 15 females) in the normal weight range; 36 participants (18 males, 18 females) in the overweight range. The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and Tower of London Task were administered to assess decision making and planning. Planning did not differ in individuals in the normal-weight and overweight groups, and no difference emerged between females and males. However, normal and overweight males and females had different patterns in decision making. On the long-term consequences index of the IGT, females reported lower scores than males. Males in the overweight range had a lower long-term consequences index on the IGT than normal-weight males, while this pattern did not emerge in females. These findings suggest that decision-making responses may differ in the overweight relative to healthy weight condition, with a different expression in males and females. This pattern should be considered in weight loss prevention strategies, possibly adopting different approaches in males and females.

Measuring Food-Related Attentional Bias

Objective: Food-related attentional bias has been defined as the tendency to give preferential attention to food-related stimuli. Attentional bias is of interest as studies have found that increased attentional bias is associated with obesity; others, however, have not. A possible reason for mixed results may be that there is no agreed upon measure of attentional bias: studies differ in both measurement and scoring of attentional bias. Additionally, little is known about the stability of attentional bias over time. The present study aims to compare attentional bias measures generated from commonly used attentional bias tasks and scoring protocols, and to test re-test reliability.

Methods: As part of a larger study, 69 participants (67% female) completed two food-related visual probe tasks at baseline: lexical (words as stimuli), and pictorial (pictures as stimuli). Reaction time bias scores (attentional bias scores) for each task were calculated in three different ways: by subtracting the reaction times for the trials where probes replaced (1) neutral stimuli from the trials where the probes replaced all food stimuli, (2) neutral stimuli from the trials where probes replaced high caloric food stimuli, and (3) neutral stimuli from low caloric food stimuli. This resulted in three separate attentional bias scores for each task. These reaction time results were then correlated. The pictorial visual probe task was administered a second time 14-days later to assess test-retest reliability.

Results: Regardless of the scoring use, lexical attentional bias scores were minimal, suggesting minimal attentional bias. Pictorial task attentional bias scores were larger, suggesting greater attentional bias. The correlation between the various scores was relatively small (r = 0.13–0.20). Similarly, test-retest reliability for the pictorial task was poor regardless of how the test was scored (r = 0.20–0.41).

Conclusion: These results suggest that at least some of the variation in findings across attentional bias studies could be due to differences in the way that attentional bias is measured. Future research may benefit from either combining eye-tracking measurements in addition to reaction times.

Anxiety and Attentional Processes: The Role of Resting Heart Rate Variability

Individuals with high anxiety preferentially focus attention on emotional information. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) plays an important role in modulating both anxiety and attentional processes. Despite many studies having evaluated attentional bias in anxious people, few of them have investigated the change blindness phenomenon associated with the attentional response toward salient stimuli, considering the role of the ANS. This study aimed to examine the role of heart rate variability (HRV) in trait anxiety and top-down and bottom-up attentional processes toward emotional stimuli. Seventy-five healthy university students were divided into high (N = 39) and low (N = 36) trait anxiety groups and completed a change detection flicker task with neutral, positive, and negative stimuli. The results evidenced a different attentional pattern between people with high and low anxiety considering both the two attentional processes and the valence of the stimuli. Specifically, individuals with high anxiety showed a bias in elaborating emotional stimuli related to their salience (i.e., negative stimuli were faster elaborated than neutral and positive stimuli when top-down attentional mechanisms were involved, while slower performances were highlighted considering bottom-up attentional mechanisms in response to emotional stimuli compared to neutral stimuli). Moreover, an association between HRV, trait anxiety levels, and change blindness phenomenon was confirmed. These results underline the role of HRV as a possible predictor of the alteration of attentional mechanism in anxiety.

Executive Functions and Body Weight at Different Ages: A Preliminary Study

Recently, researchers have focused their attention on the role of cognitive processes on eating habits and body weight changes. Few studies have examined the relationship between the first stages of overweight and executive functions (EFs), excluding obesity conditions. This study is aimed to detect the involvement of the EFs and their predictive role on body mass index (BMI) in a sample of healthy individuals from childhood to young adulthood with a cross-sectional design. One-hundred and sixty-six healthy students were recruited from different Italian public schools: 46 children (age range: 7–11), 50 adolescents (age range: 15–18), 70 young adults (age range: 19–30). BMI was used to evaluate body weight and different EFs tasks were used to assess the EFs domains of inhibition, updating and shifting. After adjusting BMI for age, a hierarchical multiple linear regression was carried out for each EFs task. Pearson’s r correlations were reported for each of the age subgroups. Motor disinhibition was associated with greater BMI in the overall sample. Higher BMI was related to poorer set-shifting in adolescence and poorer motor inhibition in young adulthood, but higher BMI was not associated with EFs in childhood. Differences in the development of EFs over time may influence weight changes over time through different responses to food and eating behavior.

Emotional Regulation and Overeating Behaviors in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review

The worldwide prevalence of obesity has dramatically increased, mostly in children and adolescents. The Emotional Eating theoretical model has proposed that the failure in emotional regulation could represent a risk factor for establishing maladaptive overeating behavior that represents an inadequate response to negative emotions and allows increasing body-weight. This systematic review investigates the relationship between overeating and both emotional regulation and emotional intelligence in childhood and adolescence, considering both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. Moreover, another goal of the review is evaluating whether emotional regulation and emotional intelligence can cause overeating behaviors. The systematic search was conducted according to the PRISMA-statement in the databases Medline, PsychArtcles, PsychInfo, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Sciences, and allows 484 records to be extracted. Twenty-six studies were selected according to inclusion (e.g., studies focused on children and adolescents without clinical conditions; groups of participants overweight or with obesity) and exclusion (e.g., studies that adopted qualitative assessment or cognitive-affective tasks to measure emotional variables; reviews, commentary, or brief reports) criteria detailed in the methods. Cross-sectional studies showed a negative association between emotional regulation and overeating behavior that was confirmed by longitudinal studies. These findings highlighted the role of maladaptive emotion regulation on overeating and being overweight. The relationship between these constructs in children and adolescents was consistent. The results indicated the complexity of this association, which would be influenced by many physiological, psychological, and social factors. These findings underline the need for further studies focused on emotion regulation in the development of overeating. They should analyze the mediation role of other variables (e.g., attachment style, peer pressure) and identify interventions to prevent and reduce worldwide overweight prevalence.