Open AccessRewarding behavior with a sweet food strengthens its valuation
Author(s) -
Jan Michael Bauer,
Marina Schröder,
Martina Vecchi,
Tina Bake,
Suzanne L. Dickson,
Michèle Bélot
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0242461
Subject(s) - calorie , valuation (finance) , obesity , food choice , psychology , cognition , medicine , environmental health , food science , biology , economics , psychiatry , endocrinology , finance , pathology
Sweet foods are commonly used as rewards for desirable behavior, specifically among children. This study examines whether such practice may contribute to reinforce the valuation of these foods. Two experiments were conducted, one with children, the other with rats. The first study, conducted with first graders ( n = 214 ), shows that children who receive a food reward for performing a cognitive task subsequently value the food more compared to a control group who received the same food without performing any task. The second study, conducted on rats ( n = 64 ), shows that rewarding with food also translates into higher calorie intake over a 24-hour period. These results suggest that the common practice of rewarding children with calorie-dense sweet foods is a plausible contributing factor to obesity and might therefore be ill advised.