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Food Insecurity and Obesity: A Pilot Study with Female Inbred Zucker Rats
Author(s) -
Townsend Marilyn S.,
Keim Nancy,
Stern Judith S.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.20.5.a1005-a
Subject(s) - hoarding (animal behavior) , food insecurity , overweight , obesity , body weight , rodent , weight gain , medicine , endocrinology , zoology , biology , psychology , physiology , feeding behavior , food security , ecology , agriculture
Studies have shown that food insecurity is associated with overweight among women with a binge eating behavior pattern as a mediator. Using an animal simulation, the objective was to determine if food insecurity in rats, brought on by intermittent and random access to highly palatable food, would lead to gradual weight gain. Zucker inbred obese female mature rats (fa/fa)(n=13) were matched for body weight and divided into 2 groups. All animals had continuous access to a nutritionally complete, rodent diet and water. During a pre‐study, corn chips were identified as the universally preferred food. As a result, a dish of corn chips was placed outside of the cage of each animal in the insecure group (n=7) and then moved inside each cage at random times & for random lengths of time. Control animals were pair‐fed with continuous access. At the end of the 18 th wk, animals were sacrificed. The insecure rats exhibited hoarding, vicious behavior, and changes in sleep patterns. Mean change in body weight [% body fat] for insecure animals(n=5) was 261.2 ± 11.6 g [42.0 ± 1.7] compared to 247.3 ± 15.2g (p=.10) [40.5 ±1.5 (p=.09)] for control animals (n=5). These results were not statistically significant (p= ≤ 0.05), but support pursuing this approach as a food insecurity/obesity model in the female obese rats and may suggest that limiting access randomly to the preferred snack food can induce hoarding and binge type eating behavior. Repeating this study with a larger sample size is necessary to determine if this food insecurity model leads to increased body weight and fat.