Tempting food words activate eating simulations

This study shows that tempting food words activate simulations of eating the food, including simulations of the taste and texture of the food, simulations of eating situations, and simulations of hedonic enjoyment. In a feature listing task, participants generated features that are typically true of four tempting foods (e.g., chips) and four neutral foods (e.g., rice). The resulting features were coded as features of eating simulations if they referred to the taste, texture, and temperature of the food (e.g., “crunchy”; “sticky”), to situations of eating the food (e.g., “movie”; “good for Wok dishes”), and to the hedonic experience when eating the food (e.g., “tasty”). Based on the grounded cognition perspective, it was predicted that tempting foods are more likely to be represented in terms of actually eating them, so that participants would list more features referring to eating simulations for tempting than for neutral foods. Confirming this hypothesis, results showed that eating simulation features constituted 53% of the features for tempting food, and 26% of the features for neutral food. Visual features, in contrast, were mentioned more often for neutral foods (45%) than for tempting foods (19%). Exploratory analyses revealed that the proportion of eating simulation features for tempting foods was positively correlated with perceived attractiveness of the foods, and negatively with participants’ dieting concerns, suggesting that eating simulations may depend on individuals’ goals with regard to eating. These findings are discussed with regard to their implications for understanding the processes guiding eating behavior, and for interventions designed to reduce the consumption of attractive, unhealthy food

Whalesong

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Are U.S. Consumers Tolerant of GM Foods?

Genetically modified (GM) foods have caused many controversies. One important controversy relates to tolerance?the impurity rate that is tolerated before a commodity must be labeled as genetically modified. Currently, the United States does not have a specific tolerance or threshold level for GM foods. This paper uses experimental auctions to determine consumers? acceptance of non-GM foods with zero, 1 percent, and 5 percent tolerance for genetically modified material. Our results indicate that consumers would pay less for food that tolerates GM material, but the discount is not significantly different for foods with 1-percent and 5-percent GM content. Key words: genetically modified (GM) foods, contamination thresholds, laboratory auctions, nth-price auction, vegetable oil, tortilla chips, russet potatoesgenetically modified foods; GM foods; contamination thresholds; laboratory auctions; nth-rice auction; vegetable oil; tortilla chips; russet potatoes

Spartan Daily September 6, 2012

Volume 139, Issue 5https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/1321/thumbnail.jp

Anxiety: An Epidemic Through the Lens of Social Media

Anxiety: An Epidemic was originally inspired by the mental health crisis in my hometown, Palo Alto, California, and evolved to specifically focus on social media-related anxiety. I examined the question: How has social media evolved over the last decade and what effect does the proliferation of social media have on the young adult population? I hypothesized that social media would have a predominately negative effect, especially on young women, and set out to create a theatrical piece inspired by my research. In my meta-analysis of studies conducted, I found that more data needs to be collected on the relatively new phenomena surrounding social media usage both as positive and negative forces. The research I conducted inspired two new artistic works: a physical theatre piece entitled MASKS: An Ode to Young Women, and a children’s story entitled “The King Who Lost His Smile” (both artistic works can be found in full in appendix A). I discovered that while more research needs to be conducted to definitively find if social media usage has a predominantly positive or negative effect, the artistic works I created can serve as a forum to start important conversations between young adults and their communities at large about their experiences with anxiety, stress, and depressive symptoms

Mindfulness reduces reactivity to food cues: underlying mechanisms and applications in daily life

Purpose of Review: Mindfulness-based interventions are becoming increasingly popular as a means to facilitate healthy eating. We suggest that the decentering component of mindfulness, which is the metacognitive insight that all experiences are impermanent, plays an especially important role in such interventions. To facilitate the application of decentering, we address its psychological mechanism to reduce reactivity to food cues, proposing that it makes thoughts and simulations in response to food cues less compelling. We discuss supporting evidence, applications, and challenges for future research. Recent Findings: Experimental and correlational studies consistently find that the adoption of a decentering perspective reduces subjective cravings, physiological reactivity such as salivation, and unhealthy eating. Summary: We suggest that the decentering perspective can be adopted in any situation to reduce reactivity to food cues. Considering people’s high exposure to food temptations in daily life, this makes it a powerful tool to empower people to eat healthily