The Effects of Caloric Education, Trial-by-Trial Feedback, and their Interaction on College-Aged Women’s Abilities to Estimate Caloric Content

Marianne T Rizk; Teresa A Treat

doi:10.1093/abm/kax014

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The Effects of Caloric Education, Trial-by-Trial Feedback, and their Interaction on College-Aged Women’s Abilities to Estimate Caloric Content

Marianne T Rizk and Teresa A Treat

Annals of behavioral medicine, Vol.52(7), pp.606-612

05/31/2018

DOI: 10.1093/abm/kax014

PMID: 29635405

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Abstract

Abstract Background Many people track the caloric content of food, given its relevance to weight loss, gain, or maintenance. A better understanding of the psychological underpinnings of caloric-content estimation for unhealthy foods is of significant psychological and public-health interest. Purpose This study investigated whether college-aged women could be trained to estimate the caloric content of unhealthy foods more accurately via exposure to caloric-content education, trial-by-trial feedback, and their combination. Methods The caloric content of 84 foods was estimated and three transfer tasks were completed by 238 undergraduate women. Mixed-effects modeling estimated three aspects of the quadratic function linking true and judged caloric content: threshold (average perceived caloric content), linear sensitivity, and change in sensitivity as caloric content increases. Results On average, college-aged women underestimated caloric content, demonstrated substantial linear sensitivity to caloric content, and did not show reduced sensitivity as caloric content increased. Trial-by-trial feedback, but not Caloric Education, enhanced caloric estimation on the first two tasks. Conclusions College-aged women show biased but sensitive judgments of the caloric content of unhealthy food presented in images. Initial evidence suggests that trial-by-trial feedback may be an efficacious strategy to enhance caloric-content estimation, at least when viewing static images of foods. College-aged women showed biased but sensitive judgments of the caloric content of unhealthy foods. Trial-by-trial Feedback, but not Caloric Education, improved caloric estimation on two tasks.

Trial-by-trial feedback

Sensitivity

Unhealthy food

Caloric education

Caloric estimation

Details

Title: Subtitle: The Effects of Caloric Education, Trial-by-Trial Feedback, and their Interaction on College-Aged Women’s Abilities to Estimate Caloric Content
Creators: Marianne T Rizk - Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA
Teresa A Treat - Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Annals of behavioral medicine, Vol.52(7), pp.606-612
DOI: 10.1093/abm/kax014
PMID: 29635405
NLM abbreviation: Ann Behav Med
ISSN: 0883-6612
eISSN: 1532-4796
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Grant note: American Psychological Association of Graduate Students (10.13039/100005389)
Language: English
Date published: 05/31/2018
Academic Unit: Psychological and Brain Sciences
Record Identifier: 9984214747902771

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