Motivating Value of Vegetables Study

High vegetable consumption is associated with maintenance of a healthy body weight. Americans do not eat vegetables in the amounts recommended by the dietary guidelines and interventions to increase intake have had limited results. Reported barriers to consumption include not knowing how to prepare them and being unused to eating them.To get people to eat vegetables, they have to be motivated to do so. Repeated consumption of snack foods increases overweight and obese individuals' motivation to eat snack foods. The investigators hypothesize that by increasing people's consumption of vegetables by making them easy to eat will increase the motivation value of vegetables. For this study the investigators propose to provide minimally-processed (cleaned, packaged) vegetables to overweight and obese individuals. The motivating value of vegetables will be measured using a computer task where people play a game to earn points towards portions of a vegetable or a neutral food (crackers). The investigators will determine potential moderators of the increase in the motivating value of vegetables such as genetics (single nucleotide polymorphisms) that are associated with the motivating value of food and whether people substitute eating vegetables for other foods. The investigators will also determine changes in adiposity as a result of vegetable consumption. Lastly, the investigators will determine if repeated consumption increases psychosocial predictors of vegetable intake, such as self-efficacy of eating vegetables.

Inclusion criteria

• BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2
• Currently eating ≤ 1 cup of vegetables (apart from fried potatoes) per day
• Willing to consent to study conditions

Exclusion criteria

• BMI < 25 kg/m2
• Age < 18 years or > 65 years
• Currently dieting or following specific diet
• Allergies or unwillingness to consume study foods
• Gastrointestinal disorder or disease
• Pregnant, lactating, or planning pregnancy
• Current smoker or tobacco user
• High dietary restraint or certain eating patterns
• Inability to give consent
• Medications that would influence appetite, weight gain, or weight loss
• Exclusionary medications: Didrex, Tenuate, Belviq, Contrave, Phendimetrazine, Adipex-P, Suprenza, Xenical, Qsymia, Saxenda