College food environments provide wide access to hyper-palatable foods (HPF). Palatable eating motives and craving are individual factors that may impact HPF intake. Nevertheless, no study to date has examined the relationship between these factors and frequency of HPF intake in a dormitory all-you-can-eat-style cafeteria meal, a typical college food setting. College students (N = 218) self-reported frequency of HPF intake at a college cafeteria meal and their frequency of HPF intake in the overall diet. Quasipoisson and logistic regression models tested whether palatable eating motives (assessed via the Palatable Eating Motives Scale) and craving (assessed via the Food Craving Inventory) were associated with the rate of HPF intake during the cafeteria meal and excess frequency of HPF intake in the overall diet. Craving was associated with a 19% higher rate of HPF intake during the cafeteria meal (RR = 1.19; p = .015) and a >2-fold higher likelihood of excess frequency of HPF intake the overall diet (OR = 2.69; p < .001). Coping motive was associated with an 87% higher likelihood of excess frequency of HPF intake in the overall diet (OR = 1.87; p = .002), but not in the cafeteria meal. Reward enhancement, social and conformity motives were not significantly associated with the frequency of HPF intake in either setting. Results highlight the role of craving and coping motive in the frequency of HPF intake among college students. Prevention efforts may consider targeting craving and eating to cope to potentially address frequency of HPF intake among college students.

Introduction: Delay discounting (DD), the tendency to prefer small, immediate rewards over larger, delayed rewards, is associated with health-risk behaviors. The study examined associations between DD for money and hyper-palatable foods (HPF) with food addiction (FA) symptoms among a general population sample. Methods: Participants (N = 296) completed an adjusting DD task that consisted of a single-commodity condition with HPF as the reward (HPF now vs. HPF later) and cross-commodity conditions comparing money and HPF (money now vs. HPF later; HPF now vs. money later). The Yale Food Addiction Scale 2.0 was used to assess FA symptoms. Zero-inflated negative binomial regression models tested whether discounting of HPF and money was associated with FA symptoms. Results: Findings indicated there were no significant associations between DD and FA symptoms in the single-commodity HPF condition (logit: OR = 1.02, p-value = 0.650; count: IRR = 1.04, p-value = 0.515). There were no significant associations among cross-commodity conditions comparing money now vs. HPF later (logit: OR = 0.96, p-value = 0.330; count: IRR = 1.02, p-value = 0.729) or conditions comparing HPF now vs. money later (logit: OR = 1.02, p-value = 0.682; count: IRR = 0.92, p-value = 0.128) and FA symptoms. Conclusions: Discounting HPF may not be a key behavioral feature among individuals who endorse FA symptoms.

Background: High delay discounting (DD), or the tendency to prefer immediate rewards over larger delayed rewards, has been associated with health risk behaviors. This study examined the DD of hyper-palatable foods (HPFs) and money, and their associations with eating motives and binge eating behavior. Methods: An adult sample (N = 296) completed a DD task with single- and cross-commodity conditions with rewards of money and/or HPF (e.g., HPF now vs. HPF later; HPF now vs. money later). Regression models tested the association between DD, and eating motives and binge eating. Results: DD in the HPF now vs. money later condition was positively associated with the reward enhancement motive ($\beta$ = 0.291; p = 0.008) and binge eating behavior ($\beta$ = 0.041; p = 0.017). There were no other significant associations. Conclusions: Decisional impulsivity specific to HPFs (and not decisional impulsivity in general) may be associated with reward-motivated eating and binge eating behavior.

Introduction: Many foods in the Western food environment may harm public health. Recently researchers have highlighted how the reinforcing properties of certain foods may drive excess energy intake and chronic disease risk. However, scientifically our understanding of what characteristics may modulate the reinforcing properties of such foods is nascent. The study focused on foods with combinations of nutrients (sodium + fat or starchy carbohydrates) at moderate to high levels, termed hyper-palatable foods (HPF), which are hypothesized to be strong reinforcers. A randomized experiment using an online crowdsourced sample was conducted to examine whether sodium may modulate the reinforcing properties of HPF. A secondary aim examined whether ultra-processed food (UPF) status contributes to the reinforcing properties of food stimuli. Methods: Adults (N=339) recruited online via Prolific were randomized to 1 of 2 study arms and presented with either: 1) HPF-UPF (HPF that were also ultra-processed); or 2) HPF-only stimuli. Participants completed a series of tasks designed to assess the subjective rewarding properties and behavioral reinforcing properties of HPF/HPF-UPF stimuli vs matched stimuli without sodium. Results: There were significant differences between the HFP/HPF-UPF and matched items without sodium on all subjective effects (liking, wanting, etc; p-values <.001; ηp² = .34-.68), on demand elasticity in a food purchase task (p <.001, ηp² = .16), and delay discounting (p values <.001, ηp² =.19-.37). Significant effects for UPF were limited to a minority of subjective effects. Conclusion: Findings provide preliminary evidence suggesting HPF may have strong reinforcing properties that may be modulated via sodium.