Appetite最新文献

{"title":"Storytelling TO promote appetite self-Regulation in Young children (STORY): results of a pilot study to reduce parental persuasive feeding behaviours","authors":"Samantha Marsh ,&nbsp;Helen Eyles ,&nbsp;Leanne Young ,&nbsp;Varsha Parag ,&nbsp;Joanna Ting Wai Chu ,&nbsp;Jessica McCormack","doi":"10.1016/j.appet.2025.108385","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.appet.2025.108385","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Appetite self-regulation is the process by which we stop eating when we are no longer hungry and is a resilience-informed approach to promoting a healthy bodyweight.</div></div><div><h3>Objective</h3><div>To develop and investigate the acceptability and preliminarily short-term effectiveness of ‘Feeding with HEART’, a parent communication tool designed to reduce parental persuasive feeding behaviours, which are associated with developing appetite self-regulation in children aged 3–6 years, using value-based messaging, storytelling, and metaphor.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>A 2-arm, 1-month pilot randomized controlled trial was undertaken to assess the communication tool. Parents of children aged 3–6 years were randomized to either the intervention group or the usual care group, and underwent study measures at baseline and 1-month follow-up. The Persuasive Feeding sub-scale of the Feeding Practices and Structure Questionnaire was the primary endpoint.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>Overall, 94 participants were randomized to either the intervention (n = 48) or usual care (n = 46) groups. In the Intention-To-Treat (ITT) analysis (n = 94), the between-group difference in the change from baseline in persuasive feeding behaviors, as assessed by the Persuasive Feeding sub-scale score of the Feeding Practices and Structure Questionnaire, improved to a greater extent in the intervention versus usual group (0.22 [SE 0.09]; p &lt; 0.013). Participant feedback was positive, with parents responding particularly favorably to the use of the story which encouraged the caregiver to take their child's point of view and mealtimes.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusions</h3><div>The ‘Feeding with Heart’ demonstrated preliminary effectiveness in reducing persuasive feeding practices in parents of children aged 3–6 years old when compared with the current standard of care in New Zealand.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":242,"journal":{"name":"Appetite","volume":"218 ","pages":"Article 108385"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145562023","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Adverse and positive childhood experiences with regard to emotional and intuitive eating styles in the national sample of Poles: A network analysis","authors":"Marcin Rzeszutek ,&nbsp;Joanna Kowalkowska ,&nbsp;Magdalena Grabowska ,&nbsp;Małgorzata Dragan ,&nbsp;Maja Lis-Turlejska ,&nbsp;Katarzyna Schier ,&nbsp;Małgorzata Styśko-Kunkowska ,&nbsp;Ewa Malinowska ,&nbsp;Tomasz Osiński ,&nbsp;Kamilla Bargiel-Matusiewicz ,&nbsp;Barbara Sosińska ,&nbsp;Maria Ibisz ,&nbsp;Saadat Almazova ,&nbsp;Marcin Bagiński ,&nbsp;Szymon Szumiał","doi":"10.1016/j.appet.2025.108381","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.appet.2025.108381","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Adverse and positive childhood experiences (ACEs and PCEs, respectively) are known to influence various health-related outcomes in adulthood, including eating behaviors. Emotional eating is considered a maladaptive eating style, whereas intuitive eating is perceived as an adaptive one. Understanding how ACEs and PCEs relate to these eating styles could inform targeted interventions. This study investigated the relationship between the types of ACEs and PCEs and eating styles (emotional and intuitive eating) among a national sample of Polish adults (n = 2231). ACEs were assessed using the Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire and PCEs using the Benevolent Childhood Experiences Scale. The two eating styles were also assessed: maladaptive (emotional eating) via the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ-13) and adaptive (intuitive eating) via the Intuitive Eating Scale-2 (IES-2). Network analysis revealed that emotional eating was positively associated with three ACEs: sexual abuse, unmet basic needs (e.g., access to food) and a lack of family love. However, emotional eating style was not associated with any PCEs. Intuitive eating was positively associated with three PCEs: comforting beliefs, fun activities, and self-acceptance. Similarly, intuitive eating was not associated with any ACEs. Body mass index (BMI) was positively associated with emotional eating and negatively associated with intuitive eating. Our findings suggest that PCEs and ACEs are independent predictors of opposing eating styles in adulthood. The results of this study can contribute to the development of effective interventions to promote the physical and mental well-being of adults.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":242,"journal":{"name":"Appetite","volume":"218 ","pages":"Article 108381"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145522532","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Validating OCOsense smart glasses in a three-week home-based study: Assessing detection of eating, food identification and the use of haptic feedback to aid behaviour modification","authors":"Aishwarya Padmanabhan ,&nbsp;Simon Stankoski ,&nbsp;Filip Panchevski ,&nbsp;Rhiannon M. Armitage ,&nbsp;Sophia Cox ,&nbsp;Claire Baert ,&nbsp;Borjan Sazdov ,&nbsp;Mia Darkovska ,&nbsp;Ivana Kiprijanovska ,&nbsp;Mohsen Fatoorechi ,&nbsp;Bojan Sofronievski ,&nbsp;Elena Indovska ,&nbsp;Angela Nikodinovska ,&nbsp;Stefani Kulebanova ,&nbsp;Andrew Cleal ,&nbsp;Martin Gjoreski ,&nbsp;Tatum Sevenoaks ,&nbsp;Charles Nduka ,&nbsp;Hristijan Gjoreski ,&nbsp;Martin R. Yeomans","doi":"10.1016/j.appet.2025.108382","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.appet.2025.108382","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We investigated the potential of OCOsense™ smart glasses to monitor eating and support behaviour change in everyday life. Twenty-three volunteers (14 women, 7 men and 2 non-binary individuals) wore the glasses for 7 h/day, at least five days/week for three weeks. To establish a baseline, in week one, participants wore the glasses with minimal intervention; in week two, they annotated each eating event and photographed their food to evaluate detection accuracy. In week three, participants responded to real-time notifications confirming whether eating was occurring when sensed by the glasses, and received haptic feedback (i.e., glasses vibration) prompting them to either chew more slowly, chew more per mouthful or take longer pauses between bites. Based on sensed chewing, the glasses algorithm detected 476/498 eating events logged in week two (F1-score 0.89), and 528/548 real-time events in week three (F1-score 0.91). To assess food detection accuracy, 598 images (1036 items) were analysed by an algorithm and compared to manual inspection. The algorithm correctly identified 919/1036 items. Compared to baseline, those aiming to change their behaviour: 1) reduced chewing rate (1.63–1.57 chews/sec), while others increased slightly (1.70–1.73); 2) increased chews per bite (22.0–22.8), which declined in others (22.8–19.5); and 3) lengthened breaks between bite (4.69–5.33 s), while others shortened theirs (5.16–4.85 s). Overall, this study demonstrates that OCOsense glasses can detect when and what people eat in everyday life and that feedback delivered by the glasses has the potential to support behaviour change.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":242,"journal":{"name":"Appetite","volume":"218 ","pages":"Article 108382"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145530297","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Self-control as a key mediator and moderator of the relationship between psychological distress and food addiction in a large community sample of adults","authors":"Jiyan Aslan Ceylan ,&nbsp;Aziz Korkmaz ,&nbsp;Abdulkerim Hatipoğlu ,&nbsp;Çağlar Akçalı ,&nbsp;Sedat Coşkunsu","doi":"10.1016/j.appet.2025.108398","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.appet.2025.108398","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Objective</h3><div>This study investigated the extent to which psychological distress (depression, anxiety, and stress) predicts food addiction (FA) symptoms and examined whether self-control operates as both a mediator and a moderator in these associations. <em>Method</em>: A total of 4234 adults (40.7 % male) participated in a large-scale, community-based, cross-sectional survey conducted in Türkiye. FA symptoms were measured via the Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS), self-control was assessed via the Brief Self-Control Scale (BSCS), and psychological distress was evaluated via the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21). Statistical analyses were conducted in SPSS, with significance defined at p &lt; 0.05.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>Overall, 35.1 % of the participants met the criteria for FA, with no significant sex difference (p = 0.19). Logistic regression analyses revealed that greater anxiety (OR = 1.078, <em>p</em> &lt; 0.01) and stress (OR = 1.109, <em>p</em> &lt; 0.01) were significant predictors of increased risk for FA, whereas greater self-control emerged as a protective factor (OR = 0.952, <em>p</em> &lt; 0.01). Mediation analyses confirmed that self-control partially accounted for the effects of psychological distress on FA symptoms, with significant indirect effects observed for stress (β = 0.025), anxiety (β = 0.029), and depression (β = 0.032). Moderation analysis revealed that self-control attenuated the effect of depression on FA symptoms (interaction term: B = 0.002, <em>p</em> &lt; 0.01), although no moderating effects were found for anxiety or stress. <em>Conclusions</em>: This study highlights self-control as both a mechanism through which psychological distress contributes to food addiction and a protective factor that reduces its impact. Enhancing self-control may help mitigate addiction-related eating behaviors.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":242,"journal":{"name":"Appetite","volume":"218 ","pages":"Article 108398"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145615109","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The impact of persistent COVID-19-related chemosensory dysfunction on quality of life, appetite and hunger: The COVORTS study","authors":"Birgit van Dijk ,&nbsp;Elbrich M. Postma ,&nbsp;Wilbert M. Boek ,&nbsp;Digna M.A. Kamalski ,&nbsp;Sanne Boesveldt","doi":"10.1016/j.appet.2025.108391","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.appet.2025.108391","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Knowledge of how persistent COVID-19-related chemosensory dysfunction affects quality of life and eating behaviour over time is lacking. The COVORTS cohort included 76 patients with recent (&lt;3 months) COVID-19 infection and persistent self-reported smell dysfunction (&gt;1 month). For one year, patients completed monthly questionnaires on quality of life impairment, appetite and hunger ratings, as well as self-reported and self-assessed chemosensory dysfunction. Psychophysical testing of olfactory and gustatory functioning was performed every 3 months. Our results revealed that quality of life, appetite, and hunger ratings all slowly but significantly improved by around 10 % after the one-year follow-up. Dysfunction in all chemosensory modalities (i.e., olfaction, gustation, and trigeminal sensations) was significantly associated with quality of life, appetite and hunger ratings. Self-reported and self-assessed measures of chemosensory dysfunction were more frequently significantly associated with quality of life, appetite and hunger ratings compared to psychophysical measures, especially at the baseline measurement. Patients who presented with low quality of life, appetite or hunger ratings at baseline were likely to still have low ratings at one-year follow-up, regardless of the type of chemosensory dysfunction they experienced. These results highlight that, although patients seem to slowly improve in quality of life, appetite and hunger ratings, there is a need for psychological counselling for patients struggling early on in symptom progression.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":242,"journal":{"name":"Appetite","volume":"218 ","pages":"Article 108391"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145627331","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Associations between maternal eating behaviours, feeding practices, and infant appetitive traits in Malaysia","authors":"Kai Ting Mok ,&nbsp;Abdul Razak Nurliyana ,&nbsp;Satvinder Kaur ,&nbsp;Wan Ying Gan ,&nbsp;See Ling Loy","doi":"10.1016/j.appet.2025.108386","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.appet.2025.108386","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Appetitive traits developed in infancy may influence dietary habits in later childhood. The impact of maternal eating behaviours (MEBs) and feeding practices remains unclear. This cross-sectional study examined the associations between MEBs, feeding practices, and appetitive traits of infants aged 1–6 months in Malaysia. A total of 256 mother-infant pairs were recruited from six government maternal and child health clinics in Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya. Data were collected through self-administered questionnaires: the Dutch Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (DEBQ) to assess MEBs (emotional, external, and restrained eating); the Baby's Basic Needs Questionnaire (BBNQ) to evaluate feeding practices (feeding modes and feeding-to-soothe (FTS)); and the Baby Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (BEBQ) to measure infants' appetitive traits (food responsiveness, enjoyment of food, satiety responsiveness, slowness in eating, and general appetite). The mothers' mean age was 32.31 ± 4.45 years, and the infants' mean age was 3.73 ± 1.67 months. Food responsiveness of formula-fed infants (14.33 ± 4.82) was significantly lower than breastfed (17.99 ± 5.33). Restrained eating was significantly associated with higher satiety responsiveness (B = 0.206, 95 % CI = 0.022–0.099), and FTS was linked to increased food responsiveness (B = 0.334, 95 % CI = 0.116–0.241). These findings highlighted the associations between MEBs and FTS with infant appetitive traits. Longitudinal studies are needed to clarify these relationships and their long-term implications.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":242,"journal":{"name":"Appetite","volume":"218 ","pages":"Article 108386"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145555800","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The influence of food category, dietary lifestyle, and consumption context on willingness to substitute animal-based food products with plant-based analogs","authors":"Nicky Coucke,&nbsp;Hendrik Slabbinck,&nbsp;Iris Vermeir","doi":"10.1016/j.appet.2025.108396","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.appet.2025.108396","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>To mitigate the potential harm caused by (over)consumption of animal-based foods, it is advisable to adopt a diet that emphasizes plant-based foods. However, it can be quite challenging for consumers to make such a change. The current research aims to investigate the opportunities for this transition in food consumption by examining the influence of consumption context (e.g., meal occasion, physical setting, and social environment), food category, and its interaction with dietary lifestyle (e.g., omnivore, flexitarian, and vegetarian) on the willingness to choose plant-based analogs instead of animal-based foods. To address this, a self-reported 24 h online food consumption recall survey was conducted in Flanders, Belgium. Participants (N = 2052) were asked to indicate which foods and beverages they had consumed in the previous 24 h from a predefined list of possible food categories. For each product reported, participants had to describe the context of consumption (location, social environment, time of day). For each animal-based food (e.g., meat, fish, dairy, and eggs) listed, participants had to answer to what extent they would be willing to substitute the listed product for a plant-based analog consumed in the described consumption context. The current research suggests differences in the willingness to replace animal-based food products with plant-based analogs based on food category, dietary lifestyle, their interaction, meal occasion and physical setting. These findings may be of interest to retailers, marketers, and policymakers who could use the knowledge gained to inform their communications and develop more effective behavioral interventions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":242,"journal":{"name":"Appetite","volume":"218 ","pages":"Article 108396"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145627360","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A tool to describe diet and eating behaviour in children at risk of malnutrition: the International Complementary Feeding Evaluation Tool (ICFET)","authors":"Charlotte M. Wright ,&nbsp;Antonina Mutoro ,&nbsp;Beatrice Milligan ,&nbsp;Amara Khan ,&nbsp;Victor Alfonso ,&nbsp;Ada L. Garcia","doi":"10.1016/j.appet.2025.108383","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.appet.2025.108383","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Purpose</h3><div>The International Complementary Feeding Evaluation tool (ICFET) is a new tool that provides a standardised description of caregiver feeding and child eating behaviour and diet in young children. It is designed to be relevant to undernutrition in low- and-middle-income countries (LMICs) and to be valid in multiple languages. This paper aims to describe the full content of the ICFET and its performance in various settings, cross-sectionally and longitudinally.</div></div><div><h3>Method</h3><div>ICFETs were completed by parents of 473 children aged 6–24 months in the UK, Kenya, Pakistan, and Guatemala. Repeated ICFETs were obtained for 62 children starting treatment for moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) in Kenya and Pakistan.</div></div><div><h3>Findings</h3><div>Solids were started much earlier in the UK than other countries; in Kenya and Pakistan self-feeding was less, and force feeding more common than in Guatemala and the UK. In the LMIC samples only 23 % children were eating foods from 5/8 of the recommended food groups daily. In the MAM treatment centres, Avidity was low: Kenya mean Z scores (SD) −1.76 (0.9); Pakistan −2.79 (0.9); and food refusal high: Kenya 0.77 (1.3), Pakistan 1.53 (0.9) compared to healthy UK infants; both showed moderate to good stability over time (Kenya Avidity Spearman's r = 0.517, p = 0.023 Refusal r = 0.557, p = 0.013; Pakistan Avidity r = 0.959, p &lt; 0.001; Refusal 0.462 p = 0.002), suggesting that they are capturing enduring appetitive characteristics.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusions</h3><div>The ICFET provides valid eating and feeding behaviour measures which track within children over time, as well as a range of useful contextual measures of diet in the complementary feeding period.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":242,"journal":{"name":"Appetite","volume":"218 ","pages":"Article 108383"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145530355","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Fading appetite: Desaturation of food images reduces cravings but not approach biases","authors":"Daniela Ruseva,&nbsp;Martin Giesel,&nbsp;Constanze Hesse","doi":"10.1016/j.appet.2025.108323","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.appet.2025.108323","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The colour of food serves as a highly salient visual cue, helping us to assess its freshness and quality. In Experiment 1, we investigated how partial and complete (i.e., greyscale) desaturation of food images influenced explicit evaluations of perishable and preserved food items. We found that both self-reported cravings and perceived palatability decreased with decreasing image saturation, with larger effects observed for perishable food items compared to preserved ones. These results suggest that colour plays an important role in food evaluation, especially for perishable items, which may rely more heavily on visual cues of freshness. Furthermore, previous research has shown that attentional biases towards food images are eliminated when the images are grey-scaled. However, it remains unclear whether colour desaturation also affects behavioural/motivational responses, such as approach biases. To address this, we conducted Experiments 2 and 3, using a stimulus-response compatibility task to assess the influence of colour desaturation on approach behaviour towards perishable and preserved food images. Contrary to the previous findings on attentional biases, we observed robust approach biases for all food images, with no significant differences across saturation conditions or food types. Our findings suggest that while attentional biases are sensitive to low-level perceptual features, such as colour saturation, approach biases may be less influenced by variations in perceptual stimulus properties. This implies that motivational approach responses are primarily driven by learned associations with food rewards rather than basic stimulus saliency, highlighting a potential dissociation between attentional and motivational processes in healthy eaters.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":242,"journal":{"name":"Appetite","volume":"217 ","pages":"Article 108323"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145172172","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sensory sensitivity and food disgust in ARFID presentations across ages","authors":"Lena Kramer ,&nbsp;Alexander Nettlau ,&nbsp;Anne-Kathrin Merz ,&nbsp;Annick Martin ,&nbsp;Anja Hilbert ,&nbsp;Ricarda Schmidt","doi":"10.1016/j.appet.2025.108329","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.appet.2025.108329","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Sensory sensitivity plays a pivotal role in avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID), and food disgust is widely accepted as a key factor in food avoidance across ages. However, their relationship remains unclear in ARFID in general and across its main presentations, picky eating, fear of aversive consequences, and lack of interest. Therefore, this cross-sectional study examined whether food disgust acted as a mediator of the relationship between sensory sensitivity and ARFID symptoms in children and adults. Parents and adults from the community participated in an online survey on children's and adults' sensory sensitivity, food disgust, and ARFID symptoms according to the three main presentations based on validated questionnaires. Data from 270 parents (children aged 2–17 years, 60.4% male) and 491 adults (18–73 years, 76.8% female) were analyzed. Consistently across ages, positive associations between food disgust and picky eating (medium to large effect) and fear of aversive consequences (small effect) were observed. Food disgust mediated (i.e., weakened) the association between sensory sensitivity and both picky eating (large effect) and fear of aversive consequences (small effect), but did not mediate this association for lack of interest. The results showed that different etiological mechanisms may play a role in the main presentations of ARFID. Food disgust was found to be particularly relevant for ARFID-picky eating in both children and adults, but was less relevant for ARFID-fear of aversive consequences and ARFID-lack of interest. Longitudinal studies are needed to explore the directionality between sensory sensitivity, food disgust, and ARFID symptoms. Addressing food disgust in therapeutic approaches for ARFID warrants further investigation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":242,"journal":{"name":"Appetite","volume":"217 ","pages":"Article 108329"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145211216","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}