Efficacy of a combined food-response inhibition and attention training for weight loss

Abstract

This Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences article reviews trials that evaluated an obesity treatment that combines response inhibition training with high-calorie foods and training designed to reduce attention for high-calorie foods. Two randomized controlled trials suggest that food response inhibition and attention training produced significant body fat loss, along with a reduction in valuation of, and reward region response to, high-calorie foods. However, these effects did not emerge in a third trial, potentially because this trial used more heterogeneous food images, which reduced inhibition learning and attentional learning. Collectively, results suggest that food response inhibition and attention training can devalue high-calorie foods and result in weight loss, but only if a homogenous set of high-calorie and low-calorie food images are used.