A new study from the University of California, San Diego suggests that children can be taught to ignore specific factors that could lead to unhealthy overeating. Attention modification programs, which a person is trained to ignore or disregard specific problematic cues, have been used in the past to treat anxiety and substance abuse.
Now, published in Appetite, the researchers used attention modification programs to teach children to disregard the abnormal behavioral responses to food cues from the brain that tempts overeating in obese children.
Kerri Boutelle, PhD, professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, said, “Attentional bias to food means that food grabs a person’s attention… We believe that there is a group of people who are inherently sensitive to food cues and, over time, eating in response to paying attention to food makes them pay even more attention. It’s based on Pavlovian conditioning.”
Childhood obesity is a growing issue and increases the child’s risk of developing cancer, cardiovascular disease and endocrine conditions.
The researchers evaluated 24 overweight and obese children between the ages of 8 and 12. One group underwent an attentional modification program (AMP) in which they watched pairs of words quickly flash on a computer screen. One of the words was a food word and the other was a non-food world. After the words disappeared, a letter on the screen replaced the word. The viewing child was asked to immediately press the right or left key associated with the letter’s location.
Overweight children reduced their overeating patterns after only one training session. The researchers are hoping that larger studies will yield the same or better results in reducing overeating in children.
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