Differences in Food Craving in Individuals With Obesity With and Without Binge Eating Disorder

Abstract

Overeating behavior is supposedly a major contributing factor to weight gain and obesity. Binge eating disorder (BED) with reoccurring episodes of excessive overeating is strongly associated with obesity. Learning models of overeating behavior and BED assume that mere confrontation with food leads to a conditioned response that is experienced as food craving. Accordingly, individuals with obesity and BED were shown to have high trait food cravings. To date, little is known about differences in state food cravings and cue reactivity at the sight of palatable food in individuals with obesity and BED compared to individuals with obesity without BED. Therefore, the aim of our study was to examine differences in cue-induced, state and trait food cravings in people with obesity with and without BED. We found that all aspects of food cravings were more prevalent in individuals with obesity and BED than in individuals without BED. By implementing a food cue reactivity paradigm, our results show that individuals with obesity with BED have more cue-induced cravings than individuals with obesity without BED. Moreover, these cue-induced cravings in individuals with obesity and BED were highest for high-fat and high-sugar foods as opposed to low-calorie foods. Thus, our results emphasize the role of increased cue reactivity and craving at the sight of palatable foods in individuals with obesity and BED. Hence, our findings support etiological models of conditioned binge eating and are in line with interventions targeting cue reactivity in BED.

Conceptualizing and Measuring Appetite Self-Regulation Phenotypes and Trajectories in Childhood: A Review of Person-Centered Strategies

“…Indeed research on ASR-related behaviors, characteristics, traits and processes has expanded considerably in recent years and there is now a growing set of possibilities for inclusion in research about ASR phenotypes in childhood including: temperament (such as impulsivity and effortful control) ( 90 ), Executive function (such as inhibitory control), genetic susceptibility, reward sensitivity, hedonic responses to food, cognitive function ( 91 ), cognitive control and negative affect ( 92 ), state and/or trait food cue reactivity ( 93 ), brain reward sensitivity to food cues ( 94 ), dietary measures, such as dietary fat or carbohydrates ( 95 , 96 ), fructose consumption ( 97 ), intake of processed food ( 98 ), sensory sensitivity ( 99 ), neuroimaging functional connectivity ( 100 ), metabolomics and analysis of the gut microbiome ( 101 , 102 ), measures of the social facilitation of eating ( 103 ), susceptibility to modeling ( 104 ), effects of portion size cues ( 105 ) and attachment security ( 106 ), behavioral and neural measures of appetitive traits such as through neuroimaging measures ( 107 , 108 ). A helpful broadening of work on ASR phenotypes is also suggested by attention to endophenotypes where genetic predisposition and neural substrates as well as behavioral measures are included ( 107 , 109 – 112 ).…”

Development of Chinese food picture library for inducing food cravings

“…Apart from the potential confounding effect of the distinctions between subtypes of high-calorie foods, another possible reason for the inconsistency could be these studies’ attempts to draw generalizations across subtypes of obesity, i.e., mixing eating-related characteristics in individuals with overweight or obesity. On the one hand, obesity and eating disorders (ED) are commonly comorbid conditions ( Ivezaj et al, 2016 ), and researchers have found that individuals with comorbid obesity and ED experience more cue-induced food cravings than obese individuals without ED ( Reents and Pedersen, 2021 ). That means the manifestation of food cravings may largely depend on the subtype distribution in a given sample, if the study fails to consider the heterogeneity in eating-related characteristics among the included individuals.…”

Responsive nucleus accumbens deep brain stimulation restores eating control in severe obesity

“…Loss of control (LOC) eating, or the subjective sense that one cannot stop eating, is associated with binge eating -de ned by the consumption of an objectively large amount of food in a short period of time accompanied by a sense of LOC. 1 LOC eating is often characterized by the loss of inhibitory control in response to appetitive cues and cravings leading to binge eating 2 . Recurrent and distressing episodes of binge eating are the key features of binge eating disorder (BED).…”