Rewarding behavior with a sweet food strengthens its valuation
Rewarding behavior with a sweet food strengthens its valuation
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.
Bauer, Jan M.
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Schroder, Marina
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Vecchi, Martina
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Bake, Tina
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Dickson, Suzanne L.
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Belot, Michele
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14 April 2021
Bauer, Jan M.
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Schroder, Marina
ded44e77-b0b6-4de7-bbdb-2d0387808385
Vecchi, Martina
4f9d9a35-032d-4003-8e8c-f91090419c88
Bake, Tina
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Dickson, Suzanne L.
46be2ca8-2ea4-43ca-8e3f-2b68de83e1b3
Belot, Michele
f29a322f-8a13-46ae-8537-5f2f6ba9d26d
Bauer, Jan M., Schroder, Marina, Vecchi, Martina, Bake, Tina, Dickson, Suzanne L. and Belot, Michele
(2021)
Rewarding behavior with a sweet food strengthens its valuation.
PLoS ONE, 16 (4), [e0242461].
(doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0242461).
Abstract
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.
Text
journal.pone.0242461
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Accepted/In Press date: 14 February 2021
Published date: 14 April 2021
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Local EPrints ID: 491365
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/491365
ISSN: 1932-6203
PURE UUID: feeea1d4-5bcc-4e41-8e47-28c5f6187f17
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Date deposited: 20 Jun 2024 17:05
Last modified: 12 Jul 2024 02:17
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Contributors
Author:
Jan M. Bauer
Author:
Marina Schroder
Author:
Martina Vecchi
Author:
Tina Bake
Author:
Suzanne L. Dickson
Author:
Michele Belot
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