Dietary variety, energy regulation, and obesity.
Abstract
Increased variety in the food supply may contribute to the development and maintenance of obesity. Thirty-nine studies examining dietary variety, energy intake, and body composition are reviewed. Animal and human studies show that food consumption increases when there is more variety in a meal or diet and that greater dietary variety is associated with increased body weight and fat. A hypothesized mechanism for these findings is sensory-specific satiety, a phenomenon demonstrating greater reductions in hedonic ratings or intake of foods consumed compared with foods not consumed. Nineteen studies documenting change in preference, intake, and hedonic ratings of food after a food has been eaten to satiation in animals and humans are reviewed, and the theory of sensory-specific satiety is examined. The review concludes with the relevance of oral habituation theory as a unifying construct for the effects of variety and sensory-specific satiety, clinical implications of dietary variety and sensory-specific satiety on energy regulation, and suggestions for future research.
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Cited by (13)
- Efficacy of Lifestyle Modification for Long‐Term Weight ControlWadden, Thomas A., Butryn, Meghan L., Byrne, Kirstin J. · 2004 · Obesity Research
- Mindfulness-Based Eating Awareness Training (MB-EAT) for Binge Eating: A Randomized Clinical TrialKristeller, Jean, Wolever, Ruth Q., Sheets, Virgil · 2014 · Mindfulness
- Food rejections in children: Cognitive and social/environmental factors involved in food neophobia and picky/fussy eating behaviorLafraire, Jérémie, Rioux, Camille, Giboreau, Agnès, Picard, Delphine · 2016 · Appetite
- Effects of deprivation on hedonics and reinforcing value of foodEpstein, Leonard H, Truesdale, Robin, Wojcik, Angela, Paluch, Rocco A, Raynor, Hollie A · 2003 · Physiology & Behavior
- Oral and postoral determinants of food reward.SCLAFANI, A · 2004 · Physiology & Behavior
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Dietary variety, energy regulation, and obesity. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1037//0033-2909.127.3.325
- The paper
- Raynor, H. A., & Epstein, L. H. (2001). Dietary variety, energy regulation, and obesity. Psychological Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1037//0033-2909.127.3.325
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.