Dominance style only partially predicts differences in neophobia and social tolerance over food in four macaque species
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Amici F
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7744554 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:In several species, rank predicts access to food, and subordinates may need specific behavioural strategies to get a share of resources. This may be especially important in despotic species, where resources are strongly biased in favour of dominants and subordinates may more strongly rely on specific tactics to maximize food intake. Here, we compared three macaque species with an experimental set-up reproducing feeding competition contest. Following our predictions, more tolerant species mostly retrieved food in the presence of others and were less dependent on specific tactics. Contrarily, subordinates in more despotic species more likely collected food (1) when dominants could not see food or (2) were attacking others, (3) while "dissimulating", or (4) "storing food". Our study reveals that dominance styles reliably predict the probability of using specific food retrieval tactics and provides important insights on the social conditions that might have led to the emergence of tactical deception.
| S-EPMC7851400 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Previous studies of nonhuman primates have found relationships between health and individual differences in personality, behavior, and social status. However, despite knowing these factors are intercorrelated, many studies focus only on a single measure, for example, rank. Consequently, it is difficult to determine the degree to which these individual differences are independently associated with health. The present study sought to untangle the associations between health and these individual differences in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). We studied 85 socially housed macaques at the Oregon and California National Primate Research Centers, and used veterinary records to determine the number of injuries and illnesses for each macaque. We measured personality using 12 items from a well-established primate personality questionnaire, performed focal observations of behaviors, and calculated dominance status from directional supplant data. All twelve personality questionnaire items were reliable and were used to represent five of the six personality dimensions identified in rhesus macaques-Dominance, Confidence, Openness, Anxiety, and Friendliness (also known as Sociability). Following this, we fit generalized linear mixed effects models to understand how these factors were associated with an animal's history of injury and history of illness. In the models, age was an offset, facility was a random effect, and the five personality dimensions, behavior, sex, and dominance status were fixed effects. Number of injuries and illnesses were each best represented by a negative binomial distribution. For the injury models, including the effects did improve model fit. This model revealed that more confident and more anxious macaques experienced fewer injuries. For the illness models, including the fixed effects did not significantly improve model fit over a model without the fixed effects. Future studies may seek to assess mechanisms underlying these associations.
| S-EPMC5969515 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The study aimed to investigate the role of sensitivity to flowability on food liking and choice, the relationship between sensitivity to flowability and food neophobia, and its role in food liking. Five chocolate creams were prepared with different levels of flowability, and rheological measurements were performed to characterise them. One hundred seventy-six subjects filled in the Food Neophobia Scale and a food choice questionnaire (FCq). The FCq was developed to evaluate preferences within a pair of food items similar in flavour but different in texture. Secondly, the subjects evaluated their liking for creams (labelled affective magnitude (LAM) scale) and the flowability intensity (generalised labelled magnitude (gLM) scale). The subjects were clustered into three groups of sensitivity and two groups of choice preference. The effect of individual flowability sensitivity on food choice was investigated. Finally, the subjects were clustered into two groups according to their food neophobia level. The sensitivity to flowability significantly affected the liking of chocolate creams and the solid food choice. The liking of chocolate creams was also affected by the individual level of neophobia (p = 0.01), which, in turn, was not correlated to flowability sensitivity. These results confirm that texture sensitivity and food neophobia affect what a person likes and drives what a person chooses to eat.
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Project description:Background'Food fussiness' (FF) is the tendency to be highly selective about which foods one is willing to eat, and emerges in early childhood; 'food neophobia' (FN) is a closely related characteristic but specifically refers to rejection of unfamiliar food. These behaviors are associated, but the extent to which their etiological architecture overlaps is unknown. The objective of this study was to quantify the relative contribution of genetic and environmental influences to variation in FF and FN in early childhood; and to establish the extent to which they share common genetic and environmental influences.MethodParticipants were 1,921 families with 16-month-old twins from the Gemini birth cohort. Parents completed the Child Eating Behaviour Questionnaire which included three FF items and four FN items. Bivariate quantitative genetic modeling was used to quantify: (a) genetic and environmental contributions to variation in FF and FN; and (b) the extent to which genetic or environmental influences on FF and FN are shared across the traits.ResultsFood fussiness and FN were strongly correlated (r = .72, p < .001). Proportions of variation in FF were equally explained by genetic (.46; 95% CI: 0.41-0.52) and shared environmental influences (.46; 95% CI: 0.41-0.51). Shared environmental effects accounted for a significantly lower proportion of variation in FN (.22; 95% CI: 0.14-0.30), but genetic influences were not significantly different from those on FF (.58, 95% CI: 0.50-0.67). FF and FN largely shared a common etiology, indicated by high genetic (.73; 95% CI: 0.67-0.78) and shared environmental correlations (.78; 95% CI: 0.69-0.86) across the two traits.ConclusionsFood fussiness and FN both show considerable heritability at 16 months but shared environmental factors, for example the home environment, influenced more interindividual differences in the expression of FF than in FN. FF and FN largely share a common etiology.
| S-EPMC5298015 | biostudies-literature
Project description:This study aimed to develop a specific instrument to evaluate food neophobia focused on Brazilian children and to perform the content validation and internal semantic consistency and reproducibility evaluation of the instrument. Three steps were necessary to conduct the study: (i) development of the instrument, (ii) internal validation (content validation and semantic evaluation) of the food neophobia instrument using 22 experts in the first round and 20 of them in the second round, (iii) evaluation of the internal consistency and reproducibility of the instrument with the children's caregivers, using the test-retest (where the same caregiver-n = 22-answered twice, with 24 h interval) and comparing responses between two caregivers (n = 44) of the same children (n = 22). We developed an instrument in Brazilian-Portuguese to evaluate children's food neophobia based on the caregivers' perceptions with 25 items divided into three domains (neophobia in general, neophobia for fruits and neophobia for vegetables). Our results indicated that the instrument has excellent internal consistency (>0.9) and reproducibility (>0.9) when answered by the caregiver who knows the child's eating habits, indicating reliability to be applied in Brazil. In addition, when the two caregivers answered the instrument, we found a good reproducibility (>0.6), confirming the possibility to be answered by one of the caregivers. Further studies are necessary to complete external validation with a representative sample of the target group in Brazil, showing nationwide the profile of the population. The potential of a neophobia study would contribute to the implementation of effective strategies and guidelines to support parents and health professionals, especially those involved in health and nutrition, to identify traces of food neophobia or neophobic behavior. By accurately measuring food neophobia in children, families can prevent nutritional deficiencies throughout adolescence and adulthood, improving eating habits. Children usually have neophobias similar to the ones presented by their parents-and when early detected, these neophobias can be addressed.
| S-EPMC7400101 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Although food and politics seem to be distant domains, socio-political ideology and food neophobia (i.e., reluctance to eat unfamiliar food) may be related. Conservatives' high threat sensitivity and the inherently threatening nature of novel foods (the existential explanation), along with conservatives' negative attitudes toward minority outgroups (e.g., foreigners) and the role of the latter in introducing novel foods to a culture (the social explanation), led us to expect that socio-political ideology would predict food neophobia over and above their common roots. Across two correlational and two experimental studies (N = 627), socio-political ideology emerged as a strong predictor of food neophobia. In addition, the findings did not support the existential explanation, while confirming the social explanation of the ideology-food neophobia link: Conservatives seem more neophobic than liberals not because of their higher threat sensitivity but rather because they hold more negative attitudes toward foreigners who are associated with those foods.
| S-EPMC8794126 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Understanding what influences where food outlets locate is important for mitigating disparities in access to healthy food outlets. However, few studies have examined how neighborhood characteristics influence the neighborhood food environment over time, and whether these relationships differ by neighborhood-level income.Neighborhood-level data from four U.S. cities (Birmingham, AL; Chicago, IL; Minneapolis, MN; Oakland, CA) from 1986, 1993, 1996, 2001, 2006, and 2011 were used with two-step econometric models to estimate longitudinal associations between neighborhood-level characteristics (z-scores) and the log-transformed count/km2 (density) of food outlets within real estate-derived neighborhoods. Associations were examined with lagged neighborhood-level sociodemographics and lagged density of food outlets, with interaction terms for neighborhood-level income. Data were analyzed in 2016.Neighborhood-level income at earlier years was negatively associated with the current density of convenience stores (?= -0.27, 95% CI= -0.16, -0.38, p<0.001). The percentage of neighborhood white population was negatively associated with fast food restaurant density in low-income neighborhoods (10th percentile of income: ?= -0.17, 95% CI= -0.34, -0.002, p=0.05), and the density of smaller grocery stores across all income levels (?= -0.27, 95% CI= -0.45, -0.09, p=0.003). There was a lack of policy-relevant associations between the pre-existing food environment and the current density of food outlet types, including supermarkets.Socioeconomically disadvantaged and minority populations may attract "unhealthy" food outlets over time. To support equal access to healthy food outlets, the availability of "less healthy" food outlets types may be relatively more important than the potential lack of supermarkets or full-service restaurants.
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Project description:Food neophobia, i.e., the aversion to novel foods, and olfaction are both factors strongly affecting food choices. Mounting evidence suggests a higher arousal towards food as a key factor underlying the reluctance to eat what is unfamiliar to us. As the role of olfaction behind this phenomenon is poorly understood, we explored the associations between food neophobia and trait anxiety, olfactory functions (odor threshold, discrimination and identification) and retronasal aroma release from a reference food in a healthy cohort of 83 adult volunteers. We grouped participants in Low-Neophobics or neophilics (n = 35), Medium-Neophobics (n = 32) and High-Neophobics (n = 16) according to the widely recognized Food Neophobia Scale. Participants with higher neophobic tendencies were found to have marginally higher trait anxiety levels than neophilics (p = 0.10). A lower global olfactory functioning and odor discrimination abilities characterized High-Neophobics, while Medium-Neophobics showed a higher odor sensitiveness than Low-Neophobics. Lastly, High-Neophobics showed a lower extent of retronasal aroma release, likely due to a shorter duration of oral processing and higher anxiety-related physiological responses (such as breathing rate). In summary, this study supports the assumption that the conflicting relationship that neophobics have with food may be led by higher levels of arousal toward foods, rather than different chemosensory functions.
| S-EPMC7689524 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundPicky eating and food neophobia are common during childhood. Childhood eating behaviors are often predictive of adult eating behaviors.ObjectivesDetermine if childhood picky eating or food neophobia is associated with childhood weight status, or with becoming underweight, overweight, or obese later in childhood.Data sourcesWe identified relevant studies from searches of PubMed, PsycINFO, and NEOHAL, as well as citations from identified studies. Study Eligibility Criteria and Participants: Inclusion criteria were original research articles examining a relationship between picky eating and/or food neophobia with childhood weight status. We summarized definitions and prevalence of picky eating or food neophobia and association with weight status.Study appraisalTwo independent investigators assessed bias and confounding using the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's RTI Item Bank.ResultsForty-one studies met inclusion criteria. Picky eating was defined inconsistently, and a large variation in prevalence was found (5.8%-59%). Food neophobia was consistently defined as an unwillingness to try new foods, with a prevalence between 40% and 60%. No association existed between childhood weight status and food neophobia, and results were unclear for picky eating.LimitationsRisk of bias and confounding were moderate. Parental report was commonly used to assess picky eating, height, and weight and parental weight, feeding styles, and community characteristics were infrequently considered.Conclusions and implicationsHeterogeneous definitions used for picky eating led to a wide range of reported prevalence and an unclear relationship with weight. Consistent definitions and an improved understanding of such a relationship could help clinicians provide appropriate anticipatory guidance.
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Project description:The aim of the present study was to evaluate adolescents' acceptability of a novel flat bread modified by substituting a part of the wheat flour content with a Pleurotus ostreatus powder rich in β-glucans, which can potentially provide health benefits. The effects of food technology neophobia and adolescents' food habits on hedonic perception of the developed product was also investigated. Two hundred and two adolescents (age range: 13-18 years; girls: 49.5%; boys: 50.5%) evaluated their liking of two flat breads, one with mushroom powder added and one control sample with only wheat flour. Sample acceptance was studied in relation to age, gender, neophobic traits and healthy food habits. The results showed that, even if the sample with mushroom powder added was generally well accepted, there were different hedonic responses among adolescents according to their food technology neophobia level and healthy habits. In particular, adolescents with a low food technology neophobia level and healthy eating behavior mostly appreciated the sample with mushroom powder added, whereas subjects with neophobic and unhealthy eating behavior gave comparable hedonic scores to the two samples. Moreover, a negative correlation was found between food technology neophobia level and healthy food habits. In conclusion, it is possible to develop a β-glucan-enriched product appreciated by adolescents using a sustainable ingredient. The developed product may be used to achieve the daily recommended intake of β-glucans by adolescents.
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