Influence of Dietary Variety on Bingeing Behavior
Open Access
- Author:
- Bontrager, Jill Lori
- Area of Honors:
- Nutritional Sciences
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Rebecca L Corwin, Thesis Supervisor
Jill Patterson, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- binge eating
variety
intermittent access
palatable foods
psychological disorders - Abstract:
- Binge eating has become a significant problem linked to many health conditions such as obesity, hypertension, and psychological disorders. Defined as the ingestion of large amounts of food during a short period of time, bingeing episodes are also marked with a sense of a lack of control. Bingeing is difficult to treat, but behavioral therapy has proven to be somewhat successful. Within this therapeutic approach, the introduction of binge foods back into the diet and increasing dietary variety are often used. However, research regarding which specific components of this approach are helpful is limited, due to ethical concerns regarding such research in human subjects. The present research made use of an animal model of binge eating, in order to determine the effects of a variety of optional fatty or sugary foods on binge consumption of those foods. In this model, binge-type eating is induced in non-food deprived rats through the provision of limited access to either a palatable fat (typically 100% vegetable shortening) or sugar (e.g. 10% sucrose). Past experiments have shown significant bingeing activity in the rats with intermittent (three times a week) access to palatable foods as compared to groups with daily access. Therefore, both intermittent (I) and daily (D) groups were included in the present study. In addition, in order to test the role that variety of palatable foods would have, a Variety group was provided fat and sugar on alternating days. In total, 5 groups were included: 1) Daily Sugar (DS): 1-hr access to a 10% sucrose solution every day; 2) Intermittent Sugar (IS): 1-hr access to a 10% sucrose solution on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday; 3) Daily Fat (DF): 1-hr access to 100% vegetable shortening every day; 4) Intermittent Fat (IF): 1-hr access to 100% vegetable shortening on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; 5) Variety (V): 1-hr access to a 10% sucrose solution on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, plus 1-hr access to 100% vegetable shortening on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Several new findings are reported. First, the shortening intake in the Variety (V) group did not differ significantly from either the intermittent fat (IF) or the daily fat (DF) group. Even though the V group consumed slightly more than the DF group, it also consumed slightly less than the IF group. Thus, the V group did not meet our operational definition of bingeing, in which intakes need to significantly exceed that of the daily control group (in this case DF). Second, during week 4 of the study, and on the last day of the study, the V group consumed significantly less sucrose than the group that had sucrose daily (DS), and slightly less than the group that had intermittent access (IS). Taken together, these results suggest that daily consumption of a fatty or sugary “treat” protects against bingeing to some extent.