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Perceived inequality in society may not motivate increased food intake in the absence of personal socioeconomic disadvantage

BACKGROUND: Greater levels of socioeconomic inequality across societies have been associated with higher rates of obesity and cardiometabolic disease. While these relationships could be attributed to poorer quality of health services and lower access to healthier lifestyles among disadvantaged group...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Cheon, Bobby K., Low, Xenia, Wijaya, Darren Jeffian, Lee, Albert
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10294481/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37365621
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-16138-0
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author Cheon, Bobby K.
Low, Xenia
Wijaya, Darren Jeffian
Lee, Albert
author_facet Cheon, Bobby K.
Low, Xenia
Wijaya, Darren Jeffian
Lee, Albert
author_sort Cheon, Bobby K.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Greater levels of socioeconomic inequality across societies have been associated with higher rates of obesity and cardiometabolic disease. While these relationships could be attributed to poorer quality of health services and lower access to healthier lifestyles among disadvantaged groups in societies with greater economic inequality, this explanation does not account for those who experience relative economic security in such unequal societies (e.g., the middle and upper classes). Here, we tested whether perceptions of greater disparities between social classes in one’s society (i.e., perceived societal inequality) may promote eating behaviors that risk excess energy intake. METHODS: In two studies, participants completed an experimental manipulation that situated them as middle class within a hypothetical society that was presented to have either large disparities in socioeconomic resources between classes (high inequality condition) or low disparities (low inequality condition), while keeping the participants’ objective socioeconomic standing constant across conditions. In Study 1 (pre-registered), participants (n = 167) completed the perceived societal inequality manipulation before a computerized food portion selection task to measure desired portion sizes for a variety of foods. Study 2 (n = 154) involved a similar design as Study 1, but with inclusion of a neutral control condition (no awareness of class disparities) followed by ad libitum consumption of potato chips. RESULTS: While the high inequality condition successfully elicited perceptions of one’s society as having greater socioeconomic inequalities between classes, it did not generate consistent feelings of personal socioeconomic disadvantage. Across both studies, we observed no differences between conditions in average selected portion sizes or actual energy intake. CONCLUSIONS: Taken together with prior research on the effects of subjective socioeconomic disadvantage on increased energy intake, these findings suggest that perceptions of inequality in one’s society may be insufficient to stimulate heightened energy intake in the absence of personal socioeconomic disadvantage or inadequacy.
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spelling pubmed-102944812023-06-28 Perceived inequality in society may not motivate increased food intake in the absence of personal socioeconomic disadvantage Cheon, Bobby K. Low, Xenia Wijaya, Darren Jeffian Lee, Albert BMC Public Health Research BACKGROUND: Greater levels of socioeconomic inequality across societies have been associated with higher rates of obesity and cardiometabolic disease. While these relationships could be attributed to poorer quality of health services and lower access to healthier lifestyles among disadvantaged groups in societies with greater economic inequality, this explanation does not account for those who experience relative economic security in such unequal societies (e.g., the middle and upper classes). Here, we tested whether perceptions of greater disparities between social classes in one’s society (i.e., perceived societal inequality) may promote eating behaviors that risk excess energy intake. METHODS: In two studies, participants completed an experimental manipulation that situated them as middle class within a hypothetical society that was presented to have either large disparities in socioeconomic resources between classes (high inequality condition) or low disparities (low inequality condition), while keeping the participants’ objective socioeconomic standing constant across conditions. In Study 1 (pre-registered), participants (n = 167) completed the perceived societal inequality manipulation before a computerized food portion selection task to measure desired portion sizes for a variety of foods. Study 2 (n = 154) involved a similar design as Study 1, but with inclusion of a neutral control condition (no awareness of class disparities) followed by ad libitum consumption of potato chips. RESULTS: While the high inequality condition successfully elicited perceptions of one’s society as having greater socioeconomic inequalities between classes, it did not generate consistent feelings of personal socioeconomic disadvantage. Across both studies, we observed no differences between conditions in average selected portion sizes or actual energy intake. CONCLUSIONS: Taken together with prior research on the effects of subjective socioeconomic disadvantage on increased energy intake, these findings suggest that perceptions of inequality in one’s society may be insufficient to stimulate heightened energy intake in the absence of personal socioeconomic disadvantage or inadequacy. BioMed Central 2023-06-26 /pmc/articles/PMC10294481/ /pubmed/37365621 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-16138-0 Text en © This is a U.S. Government work and not under copyright protection in the US; foreign copyright protection may apply 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Cheon, Bobby K.
Low, Xenia
Wijaya, Darren Jeffian
Lee, Albert
Perceived inequality in society may not motivate increased food intake in the absence of personal socioeconomic disadvantage
title Perceived inequality in society may not motivate increased food intake in the absence of personal socioeconomic disadvantage
title_full Perceived inequality in society may not motivate increased food intake in the absence of personal socioeconomic disadvantage
title_fullStr Perceived inequality in society may not motivate increased food intake in the absence of personal socioeconomic disadvantage
title_full_unstemmed Perceived inequality in society may not motivate increased food intake in the absence of personal socioeconomic disadvantage
title_short Perceived inequality in society may not motivate increased food intake in the absence of personal socioeconomic disadvantage
title_sort perceived inequality in society may not motivate increased food intake in the absence of personal socioeconomic disadvantage
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10294481/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37365621
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-16138-0
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