Food Choice, Psychological Bias, and Genetic Predisposition

Completed

• Conditions: Food Preferences; Genetic Predisposition; Psychological
• Interventions: Other: No intervention

• Registration Number: NCT04955002
• Lead Sponsor: Oxford Brookes University

Brief Summary

This project aims to assess if food choice is impacted by loss aversion (LA), and if this differs based on genetic predisposition to LA, in a UK healthy cohort.

Detailed Description

Food choice, defined as how individuals decide on what to buy and eat, involves the acceptance and rejection of specific foods. Food customisation is becoming more common amongst food retailers, allowing customers to alter their meals to their preferences by removing or adding items. Today, food choice is viewed as more complex, food choices are not just dictated by taste but nutritional quality, allergens, and habits. For example, the framework provided for food customisation (e.g. pizza with toppings or a build you own pizza) and the perceived 'healthiness' of food items (e.g. the pizza toppings) can alter food choice. Psychological reasoning, the process by which humans make decisions by drawing conclusions can play a role in food choice; however, humans can possess a psychological bias leading to illogical decision making. Genetics can too play a role in decision making resulting in predetermined influence on food choice. This research wishes to determine if individual's genetics can affect their food choices by researching psychological biases to food choices.

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2021-06-09
• Study First Submitted: 2021-06-29
• Study First Submitted QC: 2021-06-29
• Study First Posted: 2021-07-08
• Primary Completion: 2023-01-01
• Study Completion: 2023-01-01
• Status Verified: 2023-03
• Last Update Submitted: 2023-03-21
• Last Update Posted: 2023-03-22

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 100

Inclusion Criteria

• Healthy (no known health condition)
• 18 + years of age
• UK based

Exclusion Criteria

• Vegetarian
• Vegan
• Other dietary pattern that restricts the consumption of animal products

Study & Design

• Study Type: OBSERVATIONAL
• Study Design: Not specified

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Healthy UK adults	No intervention	Healthy UK adults

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Loss aversion score	December 2021
Frequency of food items remaining	December 2021	Number of food items added/removed from each decision frame
Frequency of healthy and unhealthy items remaining	December 2021	Number of healthy and unhealthy food items added/removed from each decision frame
Genotype: BDNF Val/Met (rs6265), and DRD2 ANNKK1 Taq1a/ANKK1 (rs1800497)	December 2021

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Oxford Brookes University; 🇬🇧 Oxford, United Kingdom