The attraction of sugar: An association between body mass index and impaired avoidance action tendencies of sweet snacks

The present study investigated implicit approach-avoidance action tendencies towards snack foods (pictorial Approach-Avoidance Task), and implicit approach-avoidance associations (verbal approach-avoidance Single-Target IAT) and affective associations (verbal positive-negative Single-Target IAT) with snack foods in a group of unselected student participants (N = 83). Participants with higher BMI scores had more difficulty to avoid sweet, but not salty snack foods on the Approach-Avoidance Task. Furthermore, as shown by both Single-Target IATs, there were no significant associations between BMI on the one hand and approach-avoidance associations and positive-negative affective associations on the other hand. BMI did show a positive correlation with errors made on all tasks. The results found on the Approach-Avoidance Task suggest that not increased approach, but impaired avoidance of snacks, might be related to increased BMI. However, more research is needed to further disentangle these findings.