title: UnAdulterated - children and adults' visual attention to healthy and unhealthy food.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Visually attending to unhealthy food creates a desire to consume the food. To resist the temptation people have to employ self-regulation strategies, such as visual avoidance. Past research has shown that self-regulatory skills develop throughout childhood and adolescence, suggesting adults' superior self-regulation skills compared to children.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study employed a novel method to investigate self-regulatory skills. Children and adults' initial (bottom-up) and maintained (top-down) visual attention to simultaneously presented healthy and unhealthy food were examined in an eye-tracking paradigm.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Results showed that both children and adults initially attended most to the unhealthy food. Subsequently, adults self-regulated their visual attention away from the unhealthy food. Despite the children's high self-reported attempts to eat healthily and importance of eating healthily, children did not self-regulate visual attention away from unhealthy food. Children remained influenced by the attention-driven desire to consume the unhealthy food whereas adults visually attended more strongly to the healthy food thereby avoiding the desire to consume the unhealthy option.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings emphasize the necessity of improving children's self-regulatory skills to support their desire to remain healthy and to protect children from the influences of the obesogenic environment.
authors: Self-regulation Lab, Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands. Electronic address: a.f.junghans@uu.nl.
authors: Astrid F
authors: AF
authors: Junghans
authors: Department of Experimental Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors: Ignace T C
authors: IT
authors: Hooge
authors: De Haagse Hoogeschool, The Hague, The Netherlands.
authors: Josje
authors: J
authors: Maas
authors: Self-regulation Lab, Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors: Catharine
authors: C
authors: Evers
authors: Self-regulation Lab, Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors: Denise T D
authors: DT
authors: De Ridder
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D002648:Child; D004435:Eating / Q000523:psychology; D005133:Eye Movements; D005260:Female; D005502:Food; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D057566:Self Report; D000068356:Self-Control / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Children's eating behavior; Eye movements; Health behavior; Self-regulation; Visual attention