Preference for sweetness drives snack choice and diet quality, study shows

Preference for sweetness drives snack choice and diet quality, study shows

New research finds that extremely sweet preferences, not just eating habits, are important drivers of excess sugar consumption and reduced diet quality, highlighting the complex relationship between taste, snack choices and long-term health risks.

A study recently published in the journalBMC nutritionExplores how sweetness and eating behavior interact with diet quality and additional sugar intake.

Sweet preferences, eating habits and the complex path to a healthy diet

A sweet taste provides significant pleasure from birth to those who like it. However, preferred sweetness varies between people. Interestingly, no absolute correlations were observed between high sweetness preference and additional sugar intake.

Eating behaviors develop during childhood and remain relatively stable throughout adulthood unless significant efforts are made to change them. These behaviors include uncontrolled eating, reflecting a tendency to overeat, emotional eating, such as:

People who prefer high sweetness are likely to engage in uncontrolled and emotional eating behaviors, while a moderate preference or aversion to moderate sweetness is associated with cognitive reluctance. Emotional eaters are also more likely to have poorer diet quality.

Diet quality is reduced as more sugar is consumed, reducing the Healthy Diet Index (HEI) of foods. In particular, people who don't like sweets could have low Hei by consuming foods high in salt and saturated fat.

About the study

The current study included 65 adults between the ages of 18 and 42 who were ranked by sweet preference. The study cohort was further stratified into groups that included individuals who disliked sweets, reported a moderate preference for sweets, or an extreme preference for sweets based on their preference for foods divided into tertiles of sucrose concentration. In addition to their choice of snacks, eating behavior and nutritional quality were also classified.

Snacks are often consumed outside of traditional meals and in smaller quantities. However, snacks contribute more than 20% of Americans' daily energy and refined carbohydrate intake. Researchers in the current study examined interactions between eating behavior and sweetness with diet quality and additional sugar intake in snacks rather than meals.

Study results

About 73% of study participants were overweight or obese, and 94% consumed more than the recommended daily intake of added sugars. The mean healthy eating score was 44.6 out of 100, reflecting moderate diet quality.

Given a variety of snacks, most study participants chose a very sweet but low-calorie snack, regardless of sweet preference or eating behavior. Specifically, 42% of the study cohort selected fruit cups, 14% selected brownies, and none selected vegetables. Importantly, these decisions may be affected by other factors such as religious restrictions or ethical concerns.

People who reported an extreme preference for sweet tastes perceived a pre-made sugar solution as less sweet than those with lower sweetness. An extreme preference for sweet foods was twice and three times more likely to consume foods with medium and high amounts of sugar, respectively.

Those with an extreme preference for sweets were also likely to have low diet quality, with the exception of those who consumed a high-quality diet. Decreased diet quality in these individuals was primarily attributed to increased supplemental sugar intake. No difference was observed in added sugar intake or diet quality between those with a moderate preference or aversion to sweets.

Sugar intake alone did not determine diet quality. Therefore, additional research is needed to assess whether preferences for highly palatable foods, such as:

Extreme and moderate sweetness preferences were observed more frequently in individuals who reported uncontrolled eating. The presence of uncontrolled eating correlated with emotional eating and body mass index (BMI).

Conclusions

Sweet preference predicts additional sugar intake and diet quality more strongly than eating behavior in a relatively young adult population. This may be reflected in higher rates of obesity or overweight with its cardiometabolic consequences.

In the current study, additional sugar intake or eating behavior was not observed to directly influence diet quality. In the future, these results should be validated with a larger study sample while including individuals with preferences for fats and other sensory properties of foods.

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