With food in mind: effects of mindset and BMI on food-related cognition and behavior

This thesis investigated the effects of mindset (health vs hedonic) and BMI (Body Mass Index) on brain responses to food, attention to food, and daily life snacking behaviours. It was observed that BMI does not significantly influence brain response and/or attention to food. Mindset, instead, determines brain response to food independent of tastiness and/or calorie content. That is, upon viewing foods, the level of brain activity was higher when participants focused on taste (hedonic mindset) as compared to calorie content (health mindset). Notably, information about food reward value – tastiness and calorie content – could be observed by looking at patterns, not levels, of brain activity. Future interventions aiming at increasing healthy behavior – or decreasing unhealthy behavior – could build on this work by placing mindset manipulations at the core of their design.