Obesity and risk taking. A male phenomenon.
There is a growing tendency to regard overeating as an addiction, with obesity as its primary symptom. We propose that similar to other addictions, obesity is associated with excessive risk-taking in men, though not in women. To examine this suggestion we conducted two studies, one involving a sample of overweight and normal-weight students, and the other involving obese adults drawn from a dataset of health care clients, and a control sample of normal-weight adults. In both of these studies, we found that overweight and obese men took more risk in a laboratory task than normal-weight men, while overweight and obese women did not differ from normal-weight women in this respect. At the same time, obese women (but not overweight women) displayed higher impulsivity levels than normal-weight women. These findings shed light on the cognitive characteristics of obesity in men, and accent the importance of taking gender into account when developing research paradigms and treatment methods for obesity.
Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-2520, USA. koritzky@usc.edu
Gilly
G
Koritzky
Eldad
E
Yechiam
Irit
I
Bukay
Uzi
U
Milman
D000328:Adult; D015992:Body Mass Index; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007175:Impulsive Behavior; D008297:Male; D009765:Obesity / Q000503:physiopathology*; D050177:Overweight / Q000503:physiopathology; D012307:Risk Factors; D012309:Risk-Taking; D055815:Young Adult