Obese people enjoy food less, says study

Washington DC: Researchers have found that obesity and food restrictions are associated with less food enjoyment.

Led by the University of Granada (UGR), the study has been published in the journal, Food Quality and Preference.

For this work, 552 adolescents between 11 and 17 years old from several high schools in Granada, have had their emotional reactions analysed during the visualisation of images of sweet foods.

Thus, the researchers observed that those adolescents who reported different types of dietary restrictions (different types of diet, dieting very often, skipping breakfast, eating less frequently, etc.), along with those who were obese and those who had unhealthy behaviours unrelated to food (such as smoking or having insufficient sleep), felt less pleasure, attraction and desire to eat the highly palatable foods they were looking at (images of sweets, doughnuts, ice-creams, chocolate crepes, etc.).

As explained by Laura Miccoli, main author of the study, "Adolescence, typically associated with greater body dissatisfaction, is a key stage for the development of risky eating behaviors, related both to uncontrolled restrictions on food intake -which may lead to the development of eating disorders- and with the stabilization of overweight and obesity."

The research, led by the UGR, is the first study that has examined the adolescents' emotions toward sweet food cues based on a constellation of risk behaviours, related to both obesity and eating disorders.

In the light of the results obtained, the UGR scientists point out that those adolescents who feel more pleasure or enjoyment when eating "have a healthy relationship with food, and this pleasure may be a possible protective factor against eating and weight-related disorders."

Therefore, "consistent with recent prevention strategies, it is important to change the perspective on the enjoyment of food with respect to the prevention of obesity, banishing the idea that we should avoid the pleasure of eating. On the contrary: we should take advantage of it, and make food enjoyment -the 'slow food movement'- a tool for healthy eating," Miccoli points out.