Assessing food appeal and desire to eat: the effects of portion size & energy density
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RESEARCH
Open Access
Assessing food appeal and desire to eat: the effects of portion size & energy density Kyle S Burger1,2, Marc A Cornier3, Jan Ingebrigtsen4 and Susan L Johnson1*
Abstract Background: Visual presentation of food provides considerable information such as its potential for palatability and availability, both of which can impact eating behavior. Methods: We investigated the subjective ratings for food appeal and desire to eat when exposed to food pictures in a fed sample (n = 129) using the computer paradigm ImageRate. Food appeal and desire to eat were analyzed for the effects of food group, portion size and energy density of the foods presented as well as by participant characteristics. Results: Food appeal ratings were significantly higher than those for desire to eat (57.9 ± 11.6 v. 44.7 ± 18.0; p < 0.05). Body mass index was positively correlated to desire to eat (r = 0.20; p < 0.05), but not food appeal. Food category analyses revealed that fruit was the highest rated food category for both appeal and desire, followed by discretionary foods. Additionally, overweight individuals reported higher ratings of desire to eat large portions of food compared to smaller portions (p < 0.001), although these effects were relatively small. Energy density of the foods was inversely correlated with ratings for both appeal and desire (r’s = - 0.27; p’s < 0.01). Conclusions: Results support the hypothesis that individuals differentiate between food appeal and desire to eat foods when assessing these ratings using the same type of metric. Additionally, relations among food appeal and desire to eat ratings and body mass show overweight individuals could be more responsive to visual foods cues in a manner that contributes to obesity. Keywords: liking, wanting, food appeal, desire to eat, intake, hedonic, obesity, portion size
Background Food intake is influenced by a number of factors such as visual food cues in the eating environment, the hedonic value of food and an individual’s energy state [1-3]. In today’s environment individuals are presented with visual food cues on a continual basis. Images of foods appear in print media, on screen and are visually presented when others are eating. By simply seeing food one is aware of its availability and potential palatability, both of which can act as incentive to initiate food intake [4]. Studies have reported that altering the visual aspects of food, such as portion size and visibility, can increase food intake [5-7], yet little is known about the mechanisms by which this occurs. To understand the possible
physiologic basis of the effect of visual presentation of food, research has assessed brain activation in response to food pictures. These studies have reported that brain activation in reward and attention related areas is increased when individuals are shown pictures of energy dense, highly palatable foods [8] and that activation resulting from high calorie foods is positively associated with body mass index [8-10]. However little is known about individuals’
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