Laboratory studies examining the effect of focused attention on food intake 2016-2018

These are data are from three laboratory studies examining the effect of focused attention on food intake. Human participants recruited from the Merseyside area consumed meals in an eating laboratory under different experimental conditions of focused attention vs. no focused attention. The data are measurements of food intake, participant self-report questionnaires and participant characteristics (e.g. age).
<p>Obesity is now a major biosocial issue that affects most of the developed world. Rises in obesity have been caused primarily by increases in the amount of food people have been eating. However, the long-term reductions to food consumption which are required to promote weight loss are difficult to achieve for most people on their own. Recent work has shown that memory for recent eating experiences is an important determinant of eating behaviour; by having an accurate memory representation of what we have been eating throughout the day, we can make better decisions about how much to eat. This raises the possibility of developing intervention tools that target memory for recent eating in order to help people eat more healthily. In line with this, initial results suggest that encouraging individuals to eat in a more 'attentive' manner, by ensuring attention is paid towards meals being eaten, improves memory for recent eating and reduces the amount of food people tend to eat. These finding are promising as even modest reductions to food consumption can promote weight loss and therefore have positive effects on health and well-being.
Although it has been suggested that memory informs food consumption, how this process occurs is unclear. If we are able to understand how 'attentive' eating reduces food consumption, this may have public health benefit. Thus, a thorough investigation of how memory influences eating behaviour is now required. Memory for recent eating consists of multiple episodic 'elements', such as visual memory for meal size and memory for how filling a meal is remembered to have been. Understanding which episodic 'elements' determine how much food we consume and explain why eating attentively reduces food consumption will provide us with novel theoretical information. This in turn will also enable us to design effective intervention tools to target memory for recent eating, so we can help overweight individuals eat less and lose weight, which will be of wider public health benefit.
This research will be the first to develop a theoretical account of how memory for recent eating influences eating behaviour and the process by which an 'attentive' eating style reduces food consumption. This new knowledge will then guide a translational 'real world' intervention study; taking the findings from initial promising laboratory studies and using cross-disciplinary methods to test whether 'attentive eating' principles can be applied in a public health intervention setting to help overweight people eat less and lose weight. Studies 1 and 2 use laboratory feeding methods to manipulate and interfere with memories for recent eating, in order to test and understand the influence that different memory elements have on food consumption. Study 3 tests whether targeting memory for recent eating and promoting a more 'attentive' approach to eating through the use of smartphone technology can help overweight and obese individuals eat less and lose weight.
The present project will address an important biosocial question and benefit from cross-disciplinary research methods. By the end of the research we will have developed a better understanding of how memory for recent eating influences food consumption and examined the applied relevance of this new knowledge. These novel insights will have the potential to help tackle the widespread obesity problem faced by the majority of the developed world.</p>

本数据集源自三项实验室研究，旨在探究专注注意力对食物摄入量（food intake）的影响。研究招募了来自默西塞德郡（Merseyside）的人类受试者，在饮食实验室中，让受试者分别处于专注进食注意力与无专注进食注意力两种不同实验条件下进食餐食。数据集包含食物摄入量测量数据、受试者自我报告问卷数据以及受试者基本特征数据（如年龄）。

肥胖现已成为影响绝大多数发达国家的重大生物社会问题。肥胖患病率上升的主要诱因是人们食物摄入量的增加。然而，对于大多数人而言，仅靠自身实现促进减重所需的长期食物摄入量削减，难度极大。已有研究表明，对近期进食经历的记忆是进食行为的重要决定因素；若能精准记忆当日摄入的所有食物，我们便能更合理地调整进食量。这一发现为开发靶向近期进食记忆的干预工具提供了可能，以帮助人们养成更健康的饮食习惯。与此相符的是，初步研究结果显示，通过引导个体在进食时专注于餐食本身，以更‘专注’的方式进食，能够提升个体对近期进食经历的记忆，并减少其日常进食量。这一发现颇具前景，因为即使是小幅的食物摄入量削减也能促进减重，进而对个体健康与生活质量产生积极影响。

尽管已有研究提出记忆会影响食物摄入，但这一过程的具体运作机制仍不明确。若能阐明‘专注进食’如何减少食物摄入量，将可为公共卫生领域带来裨益。因此，当前亟需深入探究记忆如何影响进食行为。近期进食记忆包含多种情景记忆（episodic memory）‘元素’，例如对餐食分量的视觉记忆，以及对餐食饱腹感的记忆。明确究竟是哪些情景记忆元素决定了我们的进食量，并解释专注进食何以减少食物摄入，将为我们提供全新的理论认知。这一认知反过来也能帮助我们设计出靶向近期进食记忆的有效干预工具，从而帮助超重个体减少进食、实现减重，这将带来更广泛的公共卫生效益。

本研究将首次构建关于近期进食记忆如何影响进食行为，以及‘专注进食’模式何以减少食物摄入的理论阐释。这一新认知将指导一项转化性‘现实场景’干预研究：我们将借鉴初步实验室研究的富有前景的结果，采用跨学科方法，验证‘专注进食’原则能否应用于公共卫生干预场景，以帮助超重个体减少进食、实现减重。研究1与研究2采用实验室进食实验方法，对近期进食记忆进行操控与干扰，以检验并阐明不同记忆元素对食物摄入量的影响。研究3则旨在验证，通过智能手机技术靶向近期进食记忆并推广更‘专注’的进食方式，能否帮助超重与肥胖个体减少进食、实现减重。

本项目将解决这一重要的生物社会问题，并将依托跨学科研究方法开展研究。研究结束时，我们将更深入地阐明近期进食记忆如何影响食物摄入，并验证这一新认知的应用价值。这些全新的研究发现将有望帮助解决绝大多数发达国家面临的普遍性肥胖问题。