Neurobehavioral predictors of diet adherence

超重和肥胖占成人所有癌症的8-17%，过去30年来美国超重和肥胖的患病率不断上升，对癌症预防工作提出了重大挑战。在人口水平上，改变饮食习惯是减肥的必要条件，但研究表明，只有一小部分节食者在开始节食一年后成功地保持了有意义的体重减轻。虽然减肥受到许多因素的影响，但对营养目标的不良行为坚持似乎是减肥的首要障碍。因此，这个项目的目的是找出影响个人坚持减肥饮食能力的心理和行为因素。来自神经科学和行为科学领域的越来越多的证据表明，与美味食物相关的愉悦和奖励在肥胖的病因中起着重要作用，并可能干扰节食时不吃美味、高能量食物的能力。我们将确定个人对美味食物的即时奖励效果的心理反应程度是否预示着他们坚持减肥饮食的能力。85名健康、超重或肥胖的女性将完成行为和自我报告测量，量化对食物奖励效应的敏感性。然后，参与者将接受营养咨询，并被要求遵循调整能量消耗的减肥饮食。将对称重食物记录进行营养分析，以确定对能量、水果、蔬菜和饱和脂肪摄入的个性化营养目标的依从性。统计分析将检验对即时食物奖励的心理反应与饮食坚持之间提出的联系。研究结果的预期模式将强调在减肥和预防癌症的干预措施中解决奖励驱动饮食的必要性。

Project Summary/Abstract Overweight and obesity account for 8-17% of all cancers in adults, and the increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity in the US over the past 3 decades poses a major challenge to cancer prevention efforts. Dietary modification will be necessary to achieve weight loss at the population level, but studies have shown that only a small minority of dieters successfully maintain meaningful weight loss beyond one year of starting a diet. Though weight loss is affected by many factors, poor behavioral adherence to nutritional targets appears to be the foremost obstacle to weight loss. Therefore, the objective of this project is to identify psychological and behavioral factors that undermine individuals' abilities to adhere to a weight loss diet. Mounting evidence from the fields of neuroscience and behavioral science indicates that the pleasure and reward associated with palatable food play a substantial role in the etiology of obesity and may interfere with the ability to refrain from palatable, energy-dense foods while dieting. We will determine whether the degree to which individuals respond psychologically to the immediately rewarding effects of palatable food predicts the ability to adhere to a weight loss diet. Eighty-five healthy, overweight or obese women will complete behavioral and self-report measures quantifying sensitivity to the rewarding effects of food. Participants will then receive nutritional counseling and be asked to follow an energy expenditure-adjusted weight loss diet. Nutritional analysis of weighed food records will be performed to determine adherence to individualized nutritional targets for energy, fruit, vegetable, and saturated fat intake. Statistical analyses will test the proposed associations between psychological responses to immediate food reward and diet adherence. The expected pattern of findings would highlight the need to address reward-driven eating in interventions for weight loss and cancer prevention.