Robust relation between temporal discounting rates and body mass

Abstract

Objective When given the choice between $100 today and $110 in one week, certain people are more likely to choose the immediate, yet smaller reward. The present study examined the relations between temporal discounting rate and body mass while accounting for important demographic variables, depressive symptoms, and behavioral inhibition and approach. Methods After having their heights and weights measured, 100 healthy adults completed the Monetary Choice Questionnaire, the Beck Depression Inventory-II, and the Behavioral Inhibition Scale/Behavioral Approach Scale. Results Overweight and obese participants exhibited higher temporal discounting rates than underweight and healthy weight participants. Temporal discounting rates decreased as the magnitude of the delayed reward increased, even when other variables known to impact temporal discounting rate (i.e., age, education level, and annual household income) were used as covariates. Conclusion A higher body mass was strongly related to choosing a more immediate monetary reward. Additional research is needed to determine whether consideration-of-future-consequences interventions, or perhaps cognitive control interventions, could be effective in obesity intervention or prevention programs.

Being Kind to Your Future Self: Probability Discounting of Health Decision-Making

“…The current findings also have several important implications for our understanding of the behavioral economics of health decisions [29]. Prior studies have linked the behavioral economic concept of temporal discounting (time-based reward devaluation) to a range of poor health behaviors such as obesity [30], needle sharing in IV drug users [31], substance use and abuse [32], and risky sexual decision-making [33]. Yet, the connections between probability discounting and health behavior have been less clear even as important treatment decisions are made relying on subjective probabilistic comparisons of uncertain costs and benefits.…”

Competing neurobehavioral decision systems and the neuroeconomics of craving in opioid addiction

“…21,22,34,35,63 The CNDS hypothesis argues that a dysregulation in the relative balance between the executive and impulsive systems can predispose individuals to poor decision-making. 34,64 This poor decision-making has been intimately linked with maladaptive responses, such as drug abuse, 54,[65][66][67] gambling, 20,68 overeating/obesity, 19 and other poor health behavior. 18 By contrast, healthier individuals tend to show stronger relative activation in the executive system that subserves activities such as valuing future events, response inhibition, planning, working memory, and attention.…”

“…17 Comparisons of patterns of neural activation during neurocognitive and cue-elicited tasks have isolated the brain regions associated with craving (eg, amygdala, ACC, dlPFC, OFC, and insula). Relatedly, executive functioning deficits in areas such as valuing future events (delay discounting), working memory, cognitive flexibility, risk taking, and attention are consistently related to substance abuse and other impulse control disorders (eg, obesity, gambling [18][19][20]. Analyses of the patterns of neural activation during these neurocognitive assessments suggest that task performance reflects the relative activation in two interconnected neurobiological systems: the evolutionarily older impulsive system, which is rewarddriven and housed in limbic and prelimbic areas (eg, ACC, amygdala), and the more recently evolved executive system, which underlies planning and self-control processes and is housed in prefrontal regions (eg, dlPFC).…”

“…19,53,54 Longitudinal work evaluating the predictive utility of executive function measures can help elucidate the role that the executive system deficits play in predisposing individuals to craving, and subsequently, dependence. 1 Longitudinal efforts might approach this problem by evaluating how measures of executive function (eg, delay discounting) and craving (eg, obsessive-compulsive drinking scale) impact future treatment gains.…”

Temporal Discounting and Health Behavior: A Review

“…Weller RE [20] reported that obese women had greater discounting of monetary rewards than healthy-weight women and that the discounting rates could not be explained by differences in earnings, age or IQ. Similarly, Jarmolowicz DP et al [21] found that delay discounting of monetary rewards was higher for obese and overweight participants than for healthy weight and underweight participants. A specific revision of studies that evaluate the discounting rate in people with different eating disorders can be found in McClelland et al [22].…”