Food-Approach Eating Behaviors and Brain Morphology: The Generation R Study

This study examined the association of food-approach eating behaviors (enjoyment of food, emotional overeating, and food responsiveness) at ages 4 and 10 years with adolescents’ brain morphology at age 13 (using MRI including assessment of cerebral white, cerebral gray, and subcortical gray matter volumes). The sample included 1,781 adolescents from a large, population-based cohort. The study found that enjoyment of food and food responsiveness at the ages of 4 and 10 were positively associated with cerebral white matter and subcortical gray matter volumes at age 13. Enjoyment of food and food responsiveness at 4 years of age, but not at 10 years, were associated with a larger cerebral gray matter volume at 13 years of age. However, no significant morphologic brain associations were found for emotional overeating or with binge-eating symptoms at 13 years of age. The study supports an association between food-approach eating behaviors, especially enjoyment of food and food responsiveness, and brain morphology in adolescence, adding important knowledge to previous studies primarily conducted in adults and suggesting that the longer-term eating behavior-brain links may be manifest by adolescence. 

Source: Dmitrichenko O, Mou Y, Voortman T, White T and Jansen PW (2022) Food-Approach Eating Behaviors and Brain Morphology: The Generation R Study. Front. Nutr. 9:846148. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2022.846148