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Impact of textual warnings on emotional brain responses to ultra-processed food products

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Ultra-processed food products (UPF) have been associated with numerous non-communicable diseases. Despite this, the addictive nature of UPF, and the aggressive marketing strategies used to promote them, has created a strong emotional connection between UPF and consumers, a...

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Autores principales: Fernandes, Thayane Ferreira da Costa, Ferreira, Naiane Beatriz, Campagnoli, Rafaela Ramos, Gomes, Fabio da Silva, Braga, Filipe, David, Isabel Antunes, Lobo, Isabela
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9686398/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36438758
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.895317
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author Fernandes, Thayane Ferreira da Costa
Ferreira, Naiane Beatriz
Campagnoli, Rafaela Ramos
Gomes, Fabio da Silva
Braga, Filipe
David, Isabel Antunes
Lobo, Isabela
author_facet Fernandes, Thayane Ferreira da Costa
Ferreira, Naiane Beatriz
Campagnoli, Rafaela Ramos
Gomes, Fabio da Silva
Braga, Filipe
David, Isabel Antunes
Lobo, Isabela
author_sort Fernandes, Thayane Ferreira da Costa
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Ultra-processed food products (UPF) have been associated with numerous non-communicable diseases. Despite this, the addictive nature of UPF, and the aggressive marketing strategies used to promote them, has created a strong emotional connection between UPF and consumers, and supports their increasing UPF global consumption. In view of the emotional link that consumers often have with UPF, modulating emotional reactions to UPF (by using strategies such as textual warnings) is important in changing consumers’ behavior. Since emotions are better understood by assessing individuals’ implicit reactions, we conducted an electroencephalographic study applying the event-related potential technique to investigate whether textual warnings were able to modulate the brain responses to UPF stimuli. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-six participants (19 women) viewed pictures of UPF preceded by a warning sentence about the health risks of consuming UPF or a control sentence while the electroencephalogram was recorded. In addition, the participants rated the picture in respect of pleasantness, arousal, and intention to consume. As emotions are associated with motivational circuits in the brain, we focused on a well-known event-related potential brain marker of the motivational relevance associated with emotional stimuli, namely late positive potential (LPP). RESULTS: The late positive potential amplitude was larger for pictures depicting UPF under the warning condition compared to the control condition, a result that was accompanied by lower pleasantness ratings during the warning condition (compared to the control). CONCLUSION: Textual warnings about the negative health consequences of consuming UPF changed the emotional responses toward UPF, possibly increasing the motivation to avoid UPF. These results shed new light on the impact of textual warnings on UPF-evoked emotions.
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spelling pubmed-96863982022-11-25 Impact of textual warnings on emotional brain responses to ultra-processed food products Fernandes, Thayane Ferreira da Costa Ferreira, Naiane Beatriz Campagnoli, Rafaela Ramos Gomes, Fabio da Silva Braga, Filipe David, Isabel Antunes Lobo, Isabela Front Nutr Nutrition BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Ultra-processed food products (UPF) have been associated with numerous non-communicable diseases. Despite this, the addictive nature of UPF, and the aggressive marketing strategies used to promote them, has created a strong emotional connection between UPF and consumers, and supports their increasing UPF global consumption. In view of the emotional link that consumers often have with UPF, modulating emotional reactions to UPF (by using strategies such as textual warnings) is important in changing consumers’ behavior. Since emotions are better understood by assessing individuals’ implicit reactions, we conducted an electroencephalographic study applying the event-related potential technique to investigate whether textual warnings were able to modulate the brain responses to UPF stimuli. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-six participants (19 women) viewed pictures of UPF preceded by a warning sentence about the health risks of consuming UPF or a control sentence while the electroencephalogram was recorded. In addition, the participants rated the picture in respect of pleasantness, arousal, and intention to consume. As emotions are associated with motivational circuits in the brain, we focused on a well-known event-related potential brain marker of the motivational relevance associated with emotional stimuli, namely late positive potential (LPP). RESULTS: The late positive potential amplitude was larger for pictures depicting UPF under the warning condition compared to the control condition, a result that was accompanied by lower pleasantness ratings during the warning condition (compared to the control). CONCLUSION: Textual warnings about the negative health consequences of consuming UPF changed the emotional responses toward UPF, possibly increasing the motivation to avoid UPF. These results shed new light on the impact of textual warnings on UPF-evoked emotions. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-11-10 /pmc/articles/PMC9686398/ /pubmed/36438758 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.895317 Text en Copyright © 2022 Fernandes, Ferreira, Campagnoli, Gomes, Braga, David and Lobo. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Nutrition
Fernandes, Thayane Ferreira da Costa
Ferreira, Naiane Beatriz
Campagnoli, Rafaela Ramos
Gomes, Fabio da Silva
Braga, Filipe
David, Isabel Antunes
Lobo, Isabela
Impact of textual warnings on emotional brain responses to ultra-processed food products
title Impact of textual warnings on emotional brain responses to ultra-processed food products
title_full Impact of textual warnings on emotional brain responses to ultra-processed food products
title_fullStr Impact of textual warnings on emotional brain responses to ultra-processed food products
title_full_unstemmed Impact of textual warnings on emotional brain responses to ultra-processed food products
title_short Impact of textual warnings on emotional brain responses to ultra-processed food products
title_sort impact of textual warnings on emotional brain responses to ultra-processed food products
topic Nutrition
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9686398/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36438758
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.895317
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