Posts Tagged ‘food cues’

The Snack Industry Won the Super Bowl

February 12, 2024 — Forget the Kansas City Chiefs and Taylor Swift. Well before the game ever started, it was very clear who would win the Super Bowl – the snack industry. The snacking industrial complex has been locked into hyperdrive for weeks, if not months, in preparation for last night’s event. The enticements were everywhere. The clickbait was […]

Food Noise: All in the Ears of the Listener?

January 6, 2024 — We are hearing a cacophony lately – lots of noise about food noise. Part of what we hear is a celebration. Some people are finding blessed relief from it when they take advanced medicines for obesity like semaglutide or tirzepatide. Others see a threat in the relief that those people are finding. They deny that […]

Targeting Food Cues for Weight Management

May 23, 2022 — As we explained yesterday, there’s quite a body of research on the food cues that surround us and keep prodding us to eat. Food marketing embeds itself deeply in our daily lives. We suspect it explains a lot about our obesogenic food environment. Yet changing that environment has proven to be quite a challenge. So […]

Food Cues in the Eat-More Food Environment

May 22, 2022 — 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 […]

Study Says Sweeteners Prompt Food Cravings? Nope.

October 9, 2021 — Reporting on non-caloric sweeteners has more in common with reporting on religion than science reporting. We see a constant churn of reporting about studies by people who are looking for evidence to support a belief that sweeteners must be bad for you. The latest headline from NPR on this subject tells us these sweeteners “may […]

How the Brain Responds to Bariatric Surgery

July 10, 2021 — Most people – even many healthcare professionals – simply don’t get it. Because the popular concept of bariatric surgery is that it prevents people from eating – just by altering your gut. But the reality is that it works very differently. Bariatric surgery changes the signaling between the brain and the gut in ways that […]

Food Cues After the COVID Pandemic

June 23, 2020 — Tamar Haspel tells a positively appealing story in the Washington Post this week. We don’t have a problem with obesity because of carbs, she writes. Nor fats, nor processed foods. The problem is the food environment. Cheap, convenient food surrounds us, with endless prompts to eat it. All these food cues, coaxing us to eat […]

Getting a Fix from Digital Screens and Food Rewards

April 7, 2019 — Is it mere coincidence that the rise of digital screen time has moved in parallel with the rise in obesity? A new paper points to a possible explanation. Researchers studied the effects of multitasking on digital screens by college students. They found a close relationship between heavy multitasking and and a stronger brain response to […]

Food, Celebrations, and Good Health

December 25, 2018 — However you’re celebrating this holiday, we hope you’re feeling warm and well loved. Along with all those good feelings, no doubt some special food and celebrations may be coming your way. Holiday Cooking, Food, and Memories Jennifer Finney Boylan tells us that this holiday season is full of bittersweet memories. But cooking and eating can […]

Different Foods Spark Different Parts of Your Brain

February 18, 2017 — It’s a complex puzzle. But your brain definitely responds in very complex ways when you spot some food. Food marketers know this at a practical level. They spend their lives figuring out ways to make you respond to images of their products. Neuroscientists are figuring it out at a more basic level. Functional MRI images […]