School of Medicine, University of St Andrews, North Haugh, St Andrews, KY16 9TF, UK.
School of Medicine, University of Glasgow, Gilbert Scott Building, University Ave, Glasgow, G12 8QQ, UK.
BMC Psychol. 2021 Mar 23;9(1):48. doi: 10.1186/s40359-021-00554-1.
Many people exercise because they know it is good for their health. Although this is true, it can make us feel deserving of a reward and lead us to eat more indulgent, less healthy food than if we had not done any exercise. Generally, lower energy-dense (LED) foods are recognised as healthier choices than higher energy-dense (HED) options. Despite our intention to make healthy choices, seeing tempting higher-calorie foods on offer often side-tracks us. Priming is a psychological tool that makes specific changes to our environment that remind us of our motivation to be healthy. This makes it easier to choose a healthier option, by nudging us towards it without us even realising. However, it is currently unclear which method of priming achieves the best results.
Our study explores whether priming people to expect they will receive LED food leads them to make this healthier choice after exercise, even when also offered tempting less healthy HED foods at the moment of selection.
Our study observed the foods selected by university athletes after their sports matches. Before the match, half of the participants were primed by asking them to choose a LED snack from the options we offered, which they would receive after the match. The remaining half of participants were not asked this same question. To distract the athletes from our observation of their food choices, participants completed a task prior to choosing their snack, which was disguised as a 'thank you' for taking part.
Overall, we found the priming group did not choose LED foods significantly more than the control group, hence priming did not increase LED food selection.
Importantly, our results indicate that priming must be more noticeable to achieve its goal. Additionally, we demonstrated that priming may be less successful for young athletic individuals, compared to older and more overweight adults recruited in other studies. This highlights the importance of studying a broader demographic range of individuals from the general population. We support future research into this area, which will help us to tweak priming to achieve the best outcomes.
ISRCTN Registry, ISRCTN74601698. Date registered: 02/10/2020 (retrospectively registered).
许多人锻炼是因为他们知道这对他们的健康有益。虽然这是事实，但它会让我们觉得自己应该得到奖励，导致我们吃更多放纵、不健康的食物，而不是在没有锻炼的情况下吃这些食物。一般来说，低能量密度（LED）食物被认为比高能量密度（HED）食物更健康。尽管我们有意做出健康的选择，但看到诱人的高热量食物摆在面前，我们常常会分心。启动是一种心理工具，它会对我们的环境做出特定的改变，提醒我们保持健康的动机。这使得我们更容易选择更健康的选择，而无需我们意识到这一点。然而，目前尚不清楚哪种启动方式能取得最好的效果。
我们的研究探讨了在运动后，当人们被启动预期会得到 LED 食物时，即使在选择时也提供了诱人的不太健康的 HED 食物，这是否会促使他们做出更健康的选择。
我们的研究观察了大学生运动员在比赛后的食物选择。在比赛前，一半的参与者被启动，要求他们从我们提供的选项中选择一种 LED 小吃，他们将在比赛后得到这种小吃。另一半参与者没有被问到同样的问题。为了分散运动员对他们食物选择的注意力，参与者在选择小吃之前完成了一项任务，这项任务被伪装成是对他们参与的“感谢”。
总体而言，我们发现启动组并没有比对照组更倾向于选择 LED 食物，因此启动并没有增加 LED 食物的选择。
重要的是，我们的结果表明，启动必须更加引人注目才能达到目的。此外，我们还表明，与其他研究中招募的年龄较大和超重的成年人相比，启动对年轻的运动个体的效果可能较小。这突出了研究更广泛的普通人群中不同人群的重要性。我们支持这一领域的进一步研究，这将有助于我们调整启动以达到最佳效果。
ISRCTN 注册中心，ISRCTN74601698。注册日期：2020 年 10 月 2 日（追溯注册）。
