Brain Development and Unhealthy Food Cues - Research Paper Example

Introduction

The aim of this research was to study a phenomenon that has been observed which is differences in development in the brain with regard to cues and an FMRI study of adults and children more especially from the perspective of psychology. Furthermore, we observed that obesity cases among children has been on the rise and as well dealt with food cues that trigger overconsumption due to their omnipresent nature (Van Meer, et al., 2015). A brief look into the past has shown that these tempting food cues have increased susceptibility of children to obesity since brain development of a child is still ongoing and as a consequence the sharp rise of obesity among children (Bruce, et al., 2010). In addition, we delved into the effects of unhealthy foods and their impacts among both adults and children; in this regard, children exhibited stronger activation when it came to comparing healthy and unhealthy foods and the regions actively involved were those related to motivation, reward and memory. From this inference, it was observed that children with BMI which is high had much reduced activation in inhibitory regions since they are susceptible to food cues (Lawrence, Hinton, Parkinson & Lawrence, 2012).

Overconsumption is a product of abundance of food cues in the modern society. In light of this inference, it is crucial to analyze the mechanisms in the neural system underlying overconsumption and food selection in children (Booth, et al., 2003). Food selection is a product of the visual aspect. The presence of food normally leads to a series of responses such as cephalic phase, hedonic evaluation and the desire to ingest (Dagher 2012). In this study, we will look at neural responses to food and the nonfood viewing in children coupled with the areas of the brain that food activates especially among children. Although children may be susceptible to food cues, they may fail to activate significant areas relevant for inhibitory control like the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (Brooks, Cedernaes & Schiöth 2013).

All regions of the brain mature at a different rate, the prefrontal cortex has in the past shown relatively greater disparity as compared to other regions of the brain with regard to gray matter reduction, synaptogenesis and resting level metabolism (Giedd, et al.,1999). In the recent past, research has shown that obese and overweight individuals have increased activation in the orbitofrontal cortex, the left dorsomedial PFC, the right precentral gyrus and the anterior cingulated cortex as compared to individuals with normal weight. In children, we observed that there is increased activation with regard to food cues in the orbitofrontal cortex, dIPFC, insula and vIPFC when it came to obese children as compared to normal weight children and a reduced activation in the right caudate nucleus and left anterior cingulate cortex (Huttenlocher & Dabholkar 1997). By and large, recent studies have indicated a negative correlation between bilateral dIPFC and the BMI and the left vIPFC activation in response to overconsumption among teenage girls. Healthiness of foods remains another factor crucial to food cues reactivity, rewarding among children will be high calorie foods as compared to adults (Stice, et al., 2008). Finally, children have in the past exhibited difficulty in diverting from unhealthy foods as compared to adults. From the above inference, this paper seeks to unearth concerns raised over the differences between adults and children in neural reactivity upon food as well as extent to which the disparities are affected by the weight of an individual.

Research Hypothesis

A huge number of children have in the recent past shown decreased activation in inhibitory regions as compared to adults, this is in response to viewing in food cues. Nearly 30% of children have shown inclination towards unhealthy foods and an increasing neural reactivity to food this figure is relatively high compared with adults who have shown high levels of restraint when it came to how they view food and their reduced neural reactivity to food (Fleming, et al., 2014). This phenomenon indicates that there could be some serious challenges facing children as a result of overconsumption which in the long run leads to obesity among children as well as adults. The situation presents an image of the inability of children with abundance of food to ensure healthiness either by lack of capacity or will. It could also mean that unhealthy food cues just provide a higher degree of craving with regard to appetizing foods in children more than is the case in adults (Van der Laan, De Ridder, Viergever & Smeets 2011). Little has been studied about this specific health phenomenon. This study seeks to establish the answers to these problems.

Literature Review

The elements comprising differences in food cues between children and adults are influenced by many factors and the responses of the brain to HF cues as compared to UF in adults today is well established as a health phenomenon. This is especially true from the inference that adults as compared to children had a mild reaction to UFs when comparing to HFs in the left precentral gyrus. With regard to same parents of the students tested, there was no difference in the analysis of HF and UF in the ROIs (Van Meer, et al., 2015).

In this review, we present the findings of a critical review of brain regions dominated by unhealthy as compared to food viewing that is healthy in both adults and children. The review aims to procedurally collect, synthesize, scrutiny and critically analyze the research literature on the neural reactivity; to establish the scope of the differences between levels of activation in the left precentral gyrus in children as compared to adults; to identify gaps in the research literature; and to make recommendations for further research on issues affecting viewing of HFs as compared to UFs (Bruce, et al., 2010).

Currently, there has been a pattern change in the perception of healthiness among adults as well as children. Increasingly, health institutions are making significant efforts to seek answers to the rising levels of obesity among children, UF cues has been proven to result to heightened attention that have been regarded rewarding and likely to trigger simulations and memories of food (Stice, Spoor, Bohon, Veldhuizen, & Small 2008). Much greater rewards have been found in children due to a higher activation of UF and HF cues in regions associated with processing of memory. In most instances, the occipital gyrus found in both children and adults showed involvement in processing the visual aspect of food and attention, from this inference, it was clear that there was an increase in visual aspect for UFs.

From the literature, we find out that tying the UFs to aspects related to memory is now a well-established global health food viewing idea, and especially so when it comes to UFs in children much more than HFs and the literature provides evidence of a much stronger activation in areas related to memory in response to UFs more than HFs. However, in relation to non-food and food, reward anticipation in meta-analysis has been identified as a reflection of concurrent motor planning and/or past encoded about eating food (Lawrence, Hinton, Parkinson & Lawrence 2012). A reaction to these variations, the worth, efficiency and possible benefits of using healthy versus unhealthy concepts and ideas, which have been effective in the healthcare world, are gradually now being applied by many health institutions: with a view to gaining correlation between dIPFC and BMI in adults to ascertain the source of craving for foods with high calorie, and gaining a larger share of the straightforward correlation between BMI and neural reactivity (Booth, et al., 2003). “The primary purpose of this paper, however, was to identify, summarize and analyze the key literature in this field, which focuses on the differences between HF cue and UF reactivity in children using their parents as a representation of adults” (Booth, et al., 2003).

Research Methodology

There are several research methods that can be used to conduct a research and the method of choice really depends on the research requirements Surveys, observations, interviews and focus groups are all admissible methods in a research dependent on qualitative data such as this one (Ng, Fleming, Robinson, Thomson, Graetz, Margono & Abraham 2014). However, the most appropriate research methodology in this case was the use of focus groups and it was selected as the main tool for conducting the research. Nevertheless, we also utilized some elements and techniques of correlational research methodologies since we regarded them as important in answering the research questions by comparing possible factors and circumstances. The research conducted will simply seek to find out from the participants through examination the developmental differences in food viewing, obesity and healthiness. The research was directed to preadolescent children and their parents were used as the adults. Data was collected through the focus groups: This tool was very efficient as most of the target population were available since they lived together. Focus groups were a quick method of collecting data. They have been shown to collect honest information from participants since in most cases the participants are able to cordially relate with the researcher who, usually, is their peer. We used focus groups to collect data on the perceptions that the children have towards what they view as healthy and unhealthy foods. Collecting data that reflects the actual feelings and opinions of these participants is elemental in this research.