The role of attentional biases to appetitive stimuli in childhood overweight

• Published in: Journal of experimental child psychology Vol. 185; pp. 206 - 213
• Main Authors: Rojo-Bofill, Luis M., Ortiz-Roldán, Alejandro, Moreno-Giménez, Alba, Rojo-Moreno, Luis, Vitoria, Isidro, Correcher, Patricia, Bofill-Moscardó, Isabel, Vento, Máximo, García-Blanco, Ana
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.09.2019
• Subjects: Attentional bias; Children; Dot-probe task; Food; Obesity; Overweight; Obesity; Attentional bias; Children; Dot-probe task; Overweight; Food
• ISSN: 0022-0965; 1096-0457
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2019.04.014

•Children show a biased initial visual orienting towards food cues regardless of their weight.•Overweight children engage and maintain attention at food cues.•Attention processing of food cues differs between healthy and overweight children.•An attentional bias to food is showed in high-risk children for adult obesity. Overweight during childhood constitutes a high-risk factor for adult obesity. An abnormal attention to food stimuli (i.e., a bias) has been suggested as an underlying mechanism to the onset and/or maintenance of obesity. Previous literature supports the existence of a biased attention toward food stimuli in adults with obesity. However, it is unknown whether this attentional bias occurs in high-risk children for adult obesity. We aimed to examine attentional biases to food at different stages of attention processing in overweight children. A dot-probe task was applied to 25 children with overweight and 25 healthy-weight children (8–12 years old). Attentional preference to or avoidance of pleasant food stimuli, which were displayed simultaneously with pleasant non-food stimuli (matched in valence and arousal), was examined at 100-ms (initial visual orienting), 500-ms (attention engagement), and 1500-ms (maintained attention) presentation rates. Both children with overweight and healthy-weight children showed an attentional bias toward food images at a 100-ms presentation rate. However, unlike healthy-weight children, those with overweight showed an attentional preference toward food images at 500- and 1500-ms presentation rates. A biased initial orienting to food cues can be found regardless of weight. However, a biased attention engagement and a biased maintained attention toward food cues are characteristics of children with overweight. Therefore, as in adults, children at risk of adult obesity have an abnormal attentional processing of food stimuli.