Research
Adherence
Higher BMI is associated with faster behavioral response times (attentional bias) to both appetizing and unappetizing food images, but not to neutral water images.
You may find yourself noticing food images faster than neutral objects, regardless of whether the food looks tasty or not. This automatic attentional bias is more pronounced in individuals with higher BMI and may contribute to overeating in cue-rich environments.
GoodSupportsMEDIUM confidence
BMI correlated positively with speed of behavioral response to both appetizing food stimuli and unappetizing food stimuli, but not to neutral stimuli.
Why this rating
Clear behavioral data with significant correlations, but limited predictive power for future weight change.
Source
Attentional Bias to Food Images Associated With Elevated Weight and Future Weight Gain: An fMRI Study
Sonja Yokum et al. · Obesity · 2011
DOI 10.1038/oby.2011.168
cohort · n=35Cited 406×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Elevated activation in the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) during initial orientation to appetizing food cues predicts future increases in BMI over a 1-year period.Good
- Higher BMI is associated with greater activation in the anterior insula/frontal operculum and lateral OFC during initial orientation to appetizing food cues, and greater activation in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) and superior parietal lobe during orientation to unappetizing food cues.Good
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