Elsevier

Appetite

Volume 107, 1 December 2016, Pages 568-574
Appetite

Modern foraging: Presence of food and energy density influence motivational processing of food advertisements

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2016.09.001Get rights and content

Abstract

More energy dense foods are preferable from an optimal foraging perspective, which suggests these foods are more motivationally relevant due to their greater capability of fulfilling biological imperatives. This increase in motivational relevance may be exacerbated in circumstances where foraging will be necessary. This study examined how food energy density and presence of food in the immediate environment interacted to influence motivational processing of food advertisements. N = 58 adults viewed advertisements for foods varying in energy density in contexts where the advertised food was actually present in the viewing room or not. Advertisements for more energy dense foods elicited greater skin conductivity level compared to ads for less energy dense foods when food was not present. All ads elicited decreases in corrugator supercilii activation indicating positive emotional response resultant from appetitive motivational activation, though the greatest activation was exhibited toward higher energy density foods when food was present. This supports an optimal foraging perspective and has implications for healthy eating interventions.

Section snippets

Optimal foraging in a modern context

In the modern world of developed countries where obesity is an issue, foraging can range from taking a stroll through the kitchen, to shopping at the local supermarket, to even watching television and seeing advertisements for the latest offerings of local restaurants. Modern technology has decreased substantially the amount of resources required to find and consume food. Foraging behavior across the majority of human evolutionary history, however, had much greater energy demands (i.e. hunting

Participants

Participants (N = 58; age M = 21.05 years, SD = 2.58 years; female N = 34; Caucasian N = 44) were recruited from an undergraduate student population. BMI (M = 24.72 kg/m2, SD = 4.21 kg/m2) was computed based on self-reported weight and height. Three participants chose not to report. Participants received course credit for their participation. Specifying a standard small effect size (0.20) and an α of 0.05 in the G*Power program (Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, & Buchner, 2007), the proposed repeated

Hypothesis 1

Hypothesis 1 predicted that individuals would exhibit greater motivational intensity and valenced motivational preference responses when exposed to advertisements for foods that were more energy dense compared to foods that were less energy dense, controlling for hunger and eating restriction. This hypothesis would call for a main effect of energy density on SCL data (more energy dense foods eliciting greater SCL), CS data (more energy dense foods eliciting decreased CS), and product

Discussion

Optimal foraging theory suggests that individuals seek energy sources with respect to the constraints of the environment. Using these tenets of biological behavior, this study proposed that in the modern foraging context of viewing food advertisements, individuals would be more appetitively motivated by more energy dense foods, especially when their environments could not meet immediate energy needs (i.e. food was not present). The data presented here, taken together, indicate that the

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