NCT02003950

Pre- and Post-restriction Chocolate Candy Consumption

Effect of Three-Week Chocolate Candy Restriction on Pre- and Post-restriction Chocolate Candy Consumption in Healthy Adults

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 50 (actual)
• Sponsor: Purdue University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 60 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

Craving differs from hunger because it occurs even when a person is in a satiated state and in the absence of an energy deficit. Craving is usually triggered by specific foods and may be attributable to certain sensory properties of foods. Foods that are craved are often regarded as less healthy choices, and are higher in energy content. Chocolate is one of the most commonly reported foods craved by people in this country. Together, craving for chocolate has been suggested to be a possible cause of weight gain and access to chocolate therefore needs to be restricted. However, it remains unknown if restriction may induce maladaptive eating behaviors of chocolate cravers. The anticipation of going on a diet has been shown to cause restrained and disinhibited eaters to react by consuming more chocolate. In this study, we will examine if this response is also found in chocolate cravers when they are asked to undergo three weeks of chocolate restriction. This study will also examine chocolate cravers' response after the chocolate restriction is lifted. We hypothesize that chocolate consumption of cravers will increase both before and after chocolate restriction is imposed. We also hypothesize that chocolate craving is specific to the food rather than its sweet taste, and that chocolate cravers are less willing to substitute chocolate for salty snacks, natural snacks, and sweet non-chocolate snacks during the restriction.

Conditions

• Investigate the Maladaptive Eating Behaviors of Normal Healthy Adults

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Snack Condition Specification	Individuals recieve a different snack for every week of the study. This is viewed as 4 phases. Phase 1 measures of habitual chocolate candy consumption (1 week), Phase 2 assesses participants' chocolate consumption while anticipating an oncoming chocolate candy restriction (1 week), Phase 3 is the total chocolate candy restriction period, but participants will be given 3 non-chocolate-candy snack substitutes in a random order (1 week per snack type, 3 weeks total), and Phase 4 examines participants' chocolate candy consumption when the 3-week restriction is lifted (1 week).

Timeline

• Start date: 2013-03-01
• Primary completion: 2014-05-01
• Completion: 2015-05-01
• First posted: 2013-12-06
• Last updated: 2023-12-15

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States