The Impact of Physical Activity on Food Reward: Review and Conceptual Synthesis of Evidence from Observational, Acute, and Chronic Exercise Training Studies

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Abstract

Purpose of Review

This review brings together current evidence from observational, acute, and chronic exercise training studies to inform public debate on the impact of physical activity and exercise on food reward.

Recent Findings

Low levels of physical activity are associated with higher liking and wanting for high-energy food. Acute bouts of exercise tend to reduce behavioral indices of reward for high-energy food in inactive individuals. A dissociation in liking (increase) and wanting (decrease) may occur during chronic exercise training associated with loss of body fat. Habitual moderate-to-vigorous physical activity is associated with lower liking and wanting for high-fat food, and higher liking for low-fat food.

Summary

Food reward does not counteract the benefit of increasing physical activity levels for obesity management. Exercise training appears to be accompanied by positive changes in food preferences in line with an overall improvement in appetite control.

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Most cited references 51

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Exercise for overweight or obesity

Kelly Shaw, Hanni Gennat, Peter J. O'Rourke … (2006)

Clinical trials have shown that exercise in adults with overweight or obesity can reduce bodyweight. There has been no quantitative systematic review of this in The Cochrane Library. To assess exercise as a means of achieving weight loss in people with overweight or obesity, using randomised controlled clinical trials. Studies were obtained from computerised searches of multiple electronic bibliographic databases. The last search was conducted in January 2006. Studies were included if they were randomised controlled trials that examined body weight change using one or more physical activity intervention in adults with overweight or obesity at baseline and loss to follow-up of participants of less than 15%. Two authors independently assessed trial quality and extracted data. The 43 studies included 3476 participants. Although significant heterogeneity in some of the main effects' analyses limited ability to pool effect sizes across some studies, a number of pooled effect sizes were calculated. When compared with no treatment, exercise resulted in small weight losses across studies. Exercise combined with diet resulted in a greater weight reduction than diet alone (WMD -1.1 kg; 95% confidence interval (CI) -1.5 to -0.6). Increasing exercise intensity increased the magnitude of weight loss (WMD -1.5 kg; 95% CI -2.3 to -0.7). There were significant differences in other outcome measures such as serum lipids, blood pressure and fasting plasma glucose. Exercise as a sole weight loss intervention resulted in significant reductions in diastolic blood pressure (WMD -2 mmHg; 95% CI -4 to -1), triglycerides (WMD -0.2 mmol/L; 95% CI -0.3 to -0.1) and fasting glucose (WMD -0.2 mmol/L; 95% CI -0.3 to -0.1). Higher intensity exercise resulted in greater reduction in fasting serum glucose than lower intensity exercise (WMD -0.3 mmol/L; 95% CI -0.5 to -0.2). No data were identified on adverse events, quality of life, morbidity, costs or on mortality. The results of this review support the use of exercise as a weight loss intervention, particularly when combined with dietary change. Exercise is associated with improved cardiovascular disease risk factors even if no weight is lost.

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Rethinking Food Reward

Ivan de Araujo, Mark Schatzker, Dana Small (2020)

The conscious perception of the hedonic sensory properties of caloric foods is commonly believed to guide our dietary choices. Current and traditional models implicate the consciously perceived hedonic qualities of food as driving overeating, whereas subliminal signals arising from the gut would curb our uncontrolled desire for calories. Here we review recent animal and human studies that support a markedly different model for food reward. These findings reveal in particular the existence of subcortical body-to-brain neural pathways linking gastrointestinal nutrient sensors to the brain's reward regions. Unexpectedly, consciously perceptible hedonic qualities appear to play a less relevant, and mostly transient, role in food reinforcement. In this model, gut-brain reward pathways bypass cranial taste and aroma sensory receptors and the cortical networks that give rise to flavor perception. They instead reinforce behaviors independently of the cognitive processes that support overt insights into the nature of our dietary decisions.

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Eating for pleasure or just wanting to eat? Reconsidering sensory hedonic responses as a driver of obesity.

David J. Mela (2006)

Pleasure from foods can stimulate "non-homoeostatic" eating, and might therefore also potentially contribute toward obesity. However, obesity is not reliably associated with heightened hedonic responses to foods. This apparent discrepancy may reflect the differentiation between "liking" and "wanting". Supporting this, behavioural and neurophysiological data on responsiveness to food-related cues indicate that obesity may be associated with increased motivation for food consumption, without necessarily any greater explicit pleasure derived from the orosensory experience of eating. This distinction may have important implications for further research, and applications in commercial and public health approaches to modifying energy intakes.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Graham Finlayson: G.S.Finlayson@leeds.ac.uk

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Curr Obes Rep

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Curr Obes Rep

Title: Current Obesity Reports

Publisher: Springer US (New York )

ISSN (Electronic): 2162-4968

Publication date (Electronic): 15 April 2020

Publication date PMC-release: 15 April 2020

Publication date (Print): 2020

Volume: 9

Issue: 2

Pages: 63-80

Affiliations

GRID grid.9909.9, ISNI 0000 0004 1936 8403, Appetite Control & Energy Balance Research Group, School of Psychology, Faculty of Medicine & Health, , University of Leeds, ; Leeds, West Yorkshire UK

Article

Publisher ID: 372

DOI: 10.1007/s13679-020-00372-3

PMC ID: 7261263

PubMed ID: 32297126

SO-VID: b40396fa-c482-4779-bb59-35dba7f22c82

License:

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

History

Funding

Funded by: University of Leeds

Custom metadata

ScienceOpen disciplines: Health & Social care

Keywords: physical activity,exercise,food reward,appetite,liking and wanting,obesity management

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Health & Social care

Keywords: physical activity, exercise, food reward, appetite, liking and wanting, obesity management

The Impact of Physical Activity on Food Reward: Review and Conceptual Synthesis of Evidence from Observational, Acute, and Chronic Exercise Training Studies

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Abstract

Purpose of Review

Recent Findings

Summary

Related collections

International Journal of Applied Technology in Medical Sciences

Most cited references 51

Exercise for overweight or obesity

Rethinking Food Reward

Eating for pleasure or just wanting to eat? Reconsidering sensory hedonic responses as a driver of obesity.

Author and article information

Contributors

Journal

Affiliations

Article

History

Funding

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Custom metadata

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