Effects of Sweet-Liking on Body Composition Depend on Age and Lifestyle: A Challenge to the Simple Sweet-Liking-Obesity Hypothesis
Taste hedonics drive food choices, and food choices affect weight maintenance. Despite this, the idea that hyper-palatability of sweet foods is linked to obesity development has been controversial for decades. Here, we investigate whether interpersonal differences in sweet-liking are related to body...
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Published in | Nutrients Vol. 12; no. 9; p. 2702 |
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Main Authors | , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Switzerland
MDPI AG
04.09.2020
MDPI |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Taste hedonics drive food choices, and food choices affect weight maintenance. Despite this, the idea that hyper-palatability of sweet foods is linked to obesity development has been controversial for decades. Here, we investigate whether interpersonal differences in sweet-liking are related to body composition. Healthy adults aged 18-34 years from the UK (
= 148) and the US (
= 126) completed laboratory-based sensory tests (sucrose taste tests) and anthropometric measures (body mass index; BMI, body fat; fat-free mass; FFM, waist/hips circumferences). Habitual beverage intake and lifestyle and behavioural characteristics were also assessed. Using hierarchical cluster analysis, we classified participants into three phenotypes: sweet liker (SL), sweet disliker (SD), and inverted-U (liking for moderate sweetness). Being a SD was linked to higher body fat among those younger than 21 years old, while in the older group, SLs had the highest BMI and FFM; age groups reflected different levels of exposure to the obesogenic environment. FFM emerged as a better predictor of sweet-liking than BMI and body fat. In the older group, sweetened beverage intake partially explained the phenotype-anthropometry associations. Collectively, our findings implicate underlying energy needs as an explanation for the variation in sweet-liking; the moderating roles of age and obesogenic environment require additional consideration. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 2072-6643 2072-6643 |
DOI: | 10.3390/nu12092702 |