Food reward after a traditional Inuit or a westernised diet in an Inuit population in Greenland

Hanne Pedersen*, Kristine Beaulieu, Graham Finlayson, Kristine Færch, Marit Eika Jørgensen, Jack Ivor Lewis, Mads Vendelbo Lind, Lotte Lauritzen, Jonas Salling Quist

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)
23 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The food availability and dietary behaviours in Greenland have changed with increasing Westernisation. Food reward is an important driver of food choice and intake, which has not previously been explored in the Arctic population. The aim of this study was to explore differences in food reward after a four-week intervention period with a traditional Inuit diet (TID) or Westernised diet (WD) in Inuit populations in Northern and Western Greenland. This cross-sectional analysis included 44 adults (n = 20 after TID and n = 24 after WD). We assessed the food reward components, explicit liking and implicit wanting, using the Leeds Food Preference Questionnaire under stand-ardised conditions 60 min after drinking a glucose drink as part of an oral glucose tolerance test after four weeks following a TID or WD. The food intake was assessed using food frequency questionnaires. The intervention groups differed only in implicit wanting for high-fat sweet foods, with higher implicit wanting among the participants following TID compared to WD. Both groups had lower explicit liking and implicit wanting for sweet relative to savoury foods and for high-fat relative to low-fat foods. This exploratory study can guide future studies in Inuit populations to include measures of food reward to better understand food intake in the Arctic.

Original languageEnglish
Article number561
JournalNutrients
Volume14
Issue number3
Number of pages13
ISSN2072-6643
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Keywords

  • Diet
  • Food intake
  • Food reward
  • Inuit
  • Liking
  • Wanting

Cite this