Decision-making for Food Consumption in Young Adults

Summary

Background: Experimental and cross-sectional evidence suggests that poor executive function can lead to heightened reactivity to food cues and perceived greater reward of unhealthy but palatable foods and subsequently lead to overeating or clinical eating disorders. This may be an important reason for the increasing trend of obesity in our society.

Aims: This study will investigate the interrelationships among executive function, reactivity to food-related cues and eating style in young adults. In addition, this study will examine the influence of food environment and stress on reactivity to food-related cues and executive function and how executive function and reactivity to food-related cues would influence health risky behaviours in young adults. We will also conduct a pilot randomized control trial (RCT) to develop the culturally specific goal priming intervention for the Chinese adults and test its effect on decision-making for food choice among adults with low executive function.

Design and subjects: This will be a three-wave cohort study in young adults who are recruited in their final-year of first post-secondary education and follow-up at six months and 12 months after their graduation. For the pilot RCT, a 2 (low vs. high executive function) x 2 (with vs. without goal priming intervention) will be used to test the effect of goal priming intervention on food choice. The goal priming intervention will be 5-min word-searching task to prime goals of healthy eating.

Main outcome measures: Participants will be invited to complete a series on computerized tasks and other assessments online in each wave to assess their executive function, risk taking propensity, reactivity to food-related cues, perceived stress, exposure to food-related cues, eating style and other health-related behaviours. Structural equation modelling will be used to test the interrelationships among executive function, reactivity to food-related cues and eating style, among exposure to food-related cues, perceived stress and reactivity to food-related cues, and among executive function, reactivity to food-related cues, risk taking and adoption of health-related behaviours. For the pilot RCT, the effect of intervention on tendency of choosing healthy and low-calorie foods will be evaluated using logistic regression model with level of executive function and goal-priming intervention as the main between-group factors.

Conditions

• Food Selection

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Priming intervention

The pilot RCT will ask participants to complete a simple word-searching exercise as a goal-priming of healthy eating and can be completed in 5 min.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• The University of Hong Kong

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Qiuyan Liao, PhD · School of Public Health, University of Hong Kong

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

30 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-06-24

Primary Completion

2024-10-24

Completion

2024-12-24

Countries

• China

Study Locations