Overeating and Decision Making Vulnerabilities

Overweight and obesity are rapidly becoming a central public health challenge around the world. For example, in the United States, nearly 65 % of adults are overweight or obese (Stein and Colditz, 2004). Overweight and obesity are associated with increased risk for cardiovascular/metabolic diseases, as well as several common adult cancers (Renehan et al. 2008). Because the fundamental cause of overweight and obesity is an energy imbalance between calories consumed and calories expended, the solution to this problem appears very simple: eat in moderation and engage in regular physical activity. However, this commonsense advice is difficult to follow for many people. Why do some succeed in regulating their eating and activity to maintain a healthy nutritional status and body weight, while others fail, and are failing in rapidly increasing numbers?

There is mounting evidence that the inability to resist calorie-rich and highly appetitive food represents a special case of addiction behavior (Kelley and Berridge 2002; Rolls 2007; Trinko et al. 2007; Volkow et al. 2008). Similar to other drug addicts, poor decision making and impulse control may facilitate overeating, especially when faced with a constant supply of highly palatable food. This Research Topic aimed to gather a group of articles discussing the relationship between eating and decision making, including eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia. We aimed to include articles from different perspectives: behavior, neuroimaging, neuropsychology, psychophysiology, clinical psychology, etc. And we welcome submissions using diverse methods, including but not limited to, behavior analysis, EEG, fMRI, computational modeling, and clinical trials.