Responsivity to food cues in bulimic women and controls

Processing of pictorial food stimuli in patients with eating disorders—A systematic review

“…6,7 Frameworks related to the phenomenon of cue reactivity are are based on conditioning processes 6,8 because they assume that the negative-reinforcing nature of drug withdrawal or the positive-reinforcing nature of consuming certain substances triggers a specific response to a substance-associated cue. Parallel mechanisms could apply to craving and excessive food consumption (binge eating) in patients with EDs 9,10 : Craving, a nearly irresistible desire for food and the urge to eat, is seen in BN patients and a subgroup of AN patients with binge/purge symptoms, and often leads to binge eating episodes as a behavioral form of cue reactivity.…”

‘I just can’t help myself’: effects of food-cue exposure in overweight and lean individuals

“…[11][12][13][14] Targeted clinical comparisons, such as those involving binge eaters and bulimics, show that individuals differ in their reactivity to food cues. [15][16][17][18][19] Despite this, it remains unclear whether differences in cue reactivity represent a risk factor for overweight and obesity. We suggest that this issue merits attention because recent research indicates that cue exposure promotes the selection of larger portion sizes, 7 and it increases the amount of food that is consumed in a meal.…”

Learned desires

“…The physiologic preparatory responses (cephalic phase responses) enable the organism to better digest, absorb, and metabolize nutrients (Power & Schulkin, 2008), and overall, appetitive responses motivate the organism to obtain and consume food. In line with this, increased levels of food cue reactivity (e.g., cue-elicited desires to eat) have been associated with overeating, unsuccessful dieting, higher BMI, and eating psychopathology (Boswell & Kober, 2016;Ferriday & Brunstrom, 2011;Ferriday & Brunstrom, 2008;Jansen, 1998;Jansen et al, 2003;Staiger, Dawe, & McCarthy, 2000;van den Akker, Stewart, Antoniou, Palmberg, & Jansen, 2014).…”