Satiety does not always silence attention to high-calorie foods: BMI modulates food-related attentional bias.

Abstract

Background: Attentional bias (AB) for palatable foods has been linked to overeating, yet data on its modulation with body-mass index (BMI) and hunger/satiety are inconsistent. We tested whether hunger, sensory-specific satiety and BMI interact to shape automatic capture of attention by real high-calorie foods.

Methods: Two emotional-attentional-blink (EAB) experiments presented food distractors either 300 ms (lag-3) or 900 ms (lag-9) before a neutral target. Experiment 1 (N = 183; whole BMI range) randomly assigned participants to taste (non-satiated), satiated or non-eating conditions; the snacks eaten (or not eaten) subsequently re-appeared as distractors in the EAB task. Experiment 2 (N = 61; 31 overweight/obese, 30 normal-weight) manipulated hunger/satiety states and snack type (consumed vs. novel) orthogonally, in a double session design.

Results: Experiment 1-food images presented at lag-3 reduced target detection compared with lag-9 (OR = 0.61, CI 0.50-0.75, p < 0.01). Higher BMI predicted a larger AB when hungry, but a smaller AB when satiated (OR = 0.65, CI 0.48-0.88, p < 0.01). Experiment 2-For novel foods, an interaction revealed that participants with overweight/obesity retained robust AB after satiation, whereas AB declined for participants with normal-weight (OR = 2.45, CI 1.09-5.51, p = 0.03). For snacks just eaten, AB remained significant in both groups (lag-3 vs. lag-9: OR = 0.37, CI 0.25-0.55, p < 0.001).

Conclusions: Real-food cues automatically biased attention regardless of metabolic state, with BMI modulating this effect: even when satiated, individuals with overweight/obesity continue to orient their attention toward both familiar and novel high-calorie foods. These findings suggest that satiety signals alone may be insufficient to curb attentional capture by food in obesity, highlighting the need for interventions that target attentional control and limit food availability.