Food Cues in the Eat-More Food Environment

Our food environment has changed to contribute to the rise in obesity over the last half century. People disagree about many things in the effort to find policies to reduce obesity. But this presumption is one that most of us can agree upon. The real question, though, is how to define these changes. Are ultra-processed foods the problem? Or food marketing? Or maybe both? Though this kind of thinking is very popular, we suspect the problem is far broader. In short, we live in an eat-more food environment that immerses us in a wide range of food cues all through the day and everywhere we go.

From this viewpoint, the growth in obesity stems not just from food marketers pushing the wrong kinds of food at us. No, it’s food cues everywhere we turn that prompt us to eat the foods we like, all day long. Online, in meetings, as we travel, in every waking minute, food cues are all around us.

And thus, the kind of very targeted food marketing restrictions that fell apart this week in the UK very likely would have little effect on obesity trends. Other food cues can easily take up the slack and keep nudging us to eat more of the food we like.

Obesity and the Response to Food Cues

Not everyone is biologically susceptible to overweight and obesity. But those who are susceptible respond more to food cues. They pay more attention. It’s not a choice, it’s how their brain is wired. In a systematic review, Joshua Hendrikse and colleagues observed:

“Despite the heterogeneous methodology within the featured studies, all measures of attentional bias demonstrated altered cue-reactivity in individuals with obesity.”

Neuroeconomics of Obesity

So Ohad Dan and colleagues conclude in a recent review that we need a neuroeconomics approach to obesity:

“The behavioral economics and neuroeconomics approaches integrate environmental factors and individual dispositions by considering the potential gains and losses underlying choice. Applying these approaches to the study of the neural mechanisms underlying obesity-inducing behaviors provides a pivotal perspective on the understanding of the complex phenomenon of obesity and the design of effective interventions.”

Overcoming the health effects of obesity will require more than punishing bad actors in the food industry and restricting the foods we define as unhealthy. So we need smarter strategies with demonstrable effects on health outcomes. We need to reshape this environment we’ve built that nudges us to eat all day long, everywhere we go.

Token gestures will never be enough.

Click here for further perspective on our brains, food cues, and obesity.

Sennoy Market in Kiev, painting by Oleksandr Bogomazov / WikiArt

Subscribe by email to follow the accumulating evidence and observations that shape our view of health, obesity, and policy.

May 22, 2022