Exercise increases attentional bias towards food cues in individuals classified as overweight to obese

Kyle D Flack; Robert E Anderson 3rd; Kylie F McFee; Richard Kryscio; Craig R Rush

doi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2022.113711

Exercise increases attentional bias towards food cues in individuals classified as overweight to obese

Physiol Behav. 2022 Apr 1:247:113711. doi: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2022.113711. Epub 2022 Jan 20.

Authors

Kyle D Flack¹, Robert E Anderson 3rd², Kylie F McFee³, Richard Kryscio⁴, Craig R Rush⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Dietetics and Human Nutrition, College of Agriculture, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY United States. Electronic address: kyle.flack@uky.edu.
² Department of Dietetics and Human Nutrition, College of Agriculture, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY United States.
³ Department of Dietetics and Human Nutrition, College of Agriculture, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY United States. Electronic address: Kyle.Flack@uky.edu.
⁴ Department of Statistics, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY United States.
⁵ Department of Behavioral Sciences, College of Medicine, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY United States; Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY United States; Department of Psychology, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY United States.

Abstract

Background: The obesity epidemic continues to be a major public health concern. Although exercise is the most common weight loss recommendation, weight loss outcomes from an exercise program are often suboptimal. The human body compensates for a large percentage of the energy expended through exercise to maintain energy homeostasis and body weight. Increases in energy intake appear to be the most impactful compensatory behavior. Research on the mechanisms driving this behavior has not been fully elucidated.

Purpose: To determine if exercise influences the attentional processing towards food cues (attentional bias) and inhibitory control for food cues among individuals classified as overweight to obese who do not exercise.

Methods: Thirty adults classified as overweight to obese participated in a counterbalanced, crossover trial featuring two assessment visits on separate days separated by at least one week. Attentional bias and inhibitory control towards food cues was assessed prior to and after a bout of exercise where participants expended 500 kcal (one assessment visit) and before and after a 60 min bout of watching television (second assessment visit). Attentional bias was conceptualized as the percentage of time fixated on food cues when both food and neutral (non-food) cues were presented during a food-specific dot-probe task. Inhibitory control, specifically motor impulsivity, was assessed as percentage of inhibitory failures during a food-specific Go/NoGo task.

Results: A significant condition by time effect was observed for attentional bias towards food cues, independent of hunger, whereas attentional bias towards food cues was increased pre-post exercise but not after watching TV. Inhibitory control was not affected by exercise or related to attentional bias for food cues.

Conclusions: An acute bout of exercise increased attentional bias for food cues, pointing to a mechanism that may contribute to the weight loss resistance observed with exercise. Future trials are needed to evaluate attentional bias towards food cues over a longitudinal exercise intervention.

Keywords: Attentional bias; Exercise; Food cues; Inhibitory control; Obesity; Weight loss.

Publication types

Clinical Trial
Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

Adult
Attentional Bias*
Cross-Over Studies
Cues
Feeding Behavior
Food
Humans
Obesity
Overweight*
Weight Loss

Grants and funding

P30 GM127211/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States