Goal-directed and Cue-dependent Behavior in Severe Obesity

Food choice and intake is a daily and throughout normal subject. However, for more and more people eating habits and the question of food choice are of increasing interest and in several cases even a problem. The prevalence of obesity has tripled in the last decades and it is even spoken of an obesity epidemic. Life style interventions to lose weight often fail on the long run, also because people fall back into former unhealthy eating habits. Bariatric surgery is a very effective procedure to reduce weight fundamentally.

Various factors influence our daily food choice, not all of which are apparent to ourselves. Thus, food choice might be goal-directed and therefore conscious and reflective, yet in other circumstances the choice to eat something specific might be based on cue dependent processes which are automatic and thus difficult to control. The aim of the current study is to investigate cue-dependent and goal-directed nutritional behavior as well as the effect of a health mindset induction in severe obesity as well as changes in such behaviors due to bariatric surgery.

Inclusion criteria

• experimental: severe obesity
• control: normal weight

Exclusion criteria

• impaired cognitive functions, which might conflict with the task
• appropriate German