Decision-making for Food Consumption in Young Adults

The University of Hong Kong (HKU)

Status: Completed

Conditions: Food Selection

Treatments: Behavioral: Priming intervention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04912375

2021effood

Details and patient eligibility

About

Background: Experimental and cross-sectional evidence suggests that poor executive function can lead to heightened reactivity to food cues and perceived greater reward of unhealthy but palatable foods and subsequently lead to overeating or clinical eating disorders. This may be an important reason for the increasing trend of obesity in our society.

Aims: This study will investigate the interrelationships among executive function, reactivity to food-related cues and eating style in young adults. In addition, this study will examine the influence of food environment and stress on reactivity to food-related cues and executive function and how executive function and reactivity to food-related cues would influence health risky behaviours in young adults. We will also conduct a pilot randomized control trial (RCT) to develop the culturally specific goal priming intervention for the Chinese adults and test its effect on decision-making for food choice among adults with low executive function.

Design and subjects: This will be a three-wave cohort study in young adults who are recruited in their final-year of first post-secondary education and follow-up at six months and 12 months after their graduation. For the pilot RCT, a 2 (low vs. high executive function) x 2 (with vs. without goal priming intervention) will be used to test the effect of goal priming intervention on food choice. The goal priming intervention will be 5-min word-searching task to prime goals of healthy eating.

Main outcome measures: Participants will be invited to complete a series on computerized tasks and other assessments online in each wave to assess their executive function, risk taking propensity, reactivity to food-related cues, perceived stress, exposure to food-related cues, eating style and other health-related behaviours. Structural equation modelling will be used to test the interrelationships among executive function, reactivity to food-related cues and eating style, among exposure to food-related cues, perceived stress and reactivity to food-related cues, and among executive function, reactivity to food-related cues, risk taking and adoption of health-related behaviours. For the pilot RCT, the effect of intervention on tendency of choosing healthy and low-calorie foods will be evaluated using logistic regression model with level of executive function and goal-priming intervention as the main between-group factors.

Enrollment: 126 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 30 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Healthy adults who can speak Chinese or Mandarin
• Aged between 18 and 30 years

Exclusion criteria

• Having cognitive difficulties to understand the study instruments
• Having a physical or medical condition that requires certain food or dietary restrictions
• Having been diagnosed with any pathogenic eating disorders
• Participants whose subject is related to psychology

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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126 participants in 4 patient groups

Low EF with priming

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will be first stratified by their Executive function (EF). In this arm, participants have low EF. They will play a puzzle task that will ask participants to take 5 min to search Chinese words for meaningful statements. Each statement represents an implicit goal of healthy eating.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Priming intervention

Low EF without priming

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants will be first stratified by their Executive function (EF). In this arm, participants have low EF. They will play a similar puzzle task but the statements they searched are neutral.

High EF with priming

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will be first stratified by their Executive function (EF). In this arm, participants have high EF. They will play a puzzle task that will ask participants to take 5 min to search Chinese words for meaningful statements. Each statement represents an implicit goal of healthy eating.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Priming intervention

High EF without priming

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants will be first stratified by their Executive function (EF). In this arm, participants have high EF. They will play a similar puzzle task but the statements they searched are neutral.