Year: 2007
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Previous research has shown that over time, humans can develop learnt associations\nbetween the sensory profile of a food and the energy it contains. These associations are\nthen used to guide appetite for the same food in future situations. However, whether\nmore acute, explicit information relating to the nutritional content of food can also\nshape eating behaviours in non-dieting individuals remains undecided. Following a\nreview of previous literature, several methodological questions were raised relating to\nthe effectiveness and validity of experimental manipulations used in some previous\nstudies. The main aim of this thesis is to re-assess whether nutritional information\ncould influence eating behaviours when these factors have been taken into\nconsideration. In two initial experiments designed to address these issues, an\ninteresting association was observed between participants' initial expectations of a\npreload and their ability to compensate for covert manipulations of its energy content.\nIn order to further investigate this association, measures were developed based upon\npsychophysical analysis to provide an alternative method of measuring expectancies of\nthe satiating efficacy of a food. The use of this measure allowed a quantifiable\nmeasurement of a participant's expectancies towards a food, while lessening the risk\nthat demand effects were contaminating results. The final experiments of this thesis\nthen re-examined the earlier observation that expectations of foods could mediate the\nregulatory responses that ingesting the food creates. The observed results did not\nsupport the proposal that expectancies of a preload were mediating compensatory\nability by prompting attention towards visceral cues. Instead, results suggested that\nenhanced compensation was observed when participants were provided with an\nunexpected deficit in energy intake, rather than an unexpected surplus. This introduces\nthe concept that an individual's short-term compensatory ability may be partly\ndetermined by pre-existing expectations about the food they are eating. The\nimplications of this finding with regard to dietary preloading paradigms are discussed,\nand the possibility that this mechanism could explain the poor compensatory ability\noften associated with liquid loads is explored.
Author: Robert Owen
Language: English
Subfield: Endocrine and Autonomic Systems
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1686063140