Relationship between the incongruence between desire and goal in eating and the emotions evoked by different foods

• Grant number: 25/02098-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Start date: April 12, 2025
• End date: October 11, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Nutrition
• Principal Investigator: Juliana Alvares Duarte Bonini Campos
• Grantee: Pabliane de Melo Passos
• Supervisor: Ana Filipa Fernandes Pimenta
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Farmacêuticas (FCFAR). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Araraquara. Araraquara , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada (ISPA), Portugal
• Associated to the scholarship: 24/07438-6 - Relationship between the incongruence between desire and goal in eating and the emotions evoked by different foods, BP.MS

Abstract

Objective: I. To investigate desire-goal incongruence in the diet of university students; II. To assess the influence of anxiety, depression and stress symptoms and sample characteristics on desire-goal incongruence in students; III. To identify the preferred and strongly disliked foods of students; IV. To identify the emotions triggered by different foods in subgroups of students delineated on the basis of desire-goal incongruence and body mass index; V. To conduct a cross-national comparison between Brazil and Portugal on desire-goal incongruence in students' diets. Methods: This project will be developed in three phases. Phase 1 will be a cross-sectional observational study. All students enrolled in undergraduate programs at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2024 and 2025 will be invited to participate. Information will be collected to characterize the sample and identify the three most favorite foods and the three most disliked foods. The incongruence between the participant's desire and goal in relation to food will be estimated with the Dietary Goal-Desire Incongruence Scale (DG-DI) and the symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress with the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21). The psychometric indicators will be estimated by confirmatory analysis with the Comparative Fit Index (CFI), the Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI), the Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) and the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA). Reliability will be estimated on the basis of the ordinal omega and alpha coefficients. The factorial invariance of the models considering the characteristics of interest will be estimated by a multigroup analysis (¿CFI). The values for desire-goal incongruence, depression, anxiety and stress will be calculated and compared with a 95% confidence interval (95%CI). A structural model will be created and tested to estimate the contribution of anxiety, depression and stress symptoms as well as demographic characteristics of the sample to desire-goal incongruence. Word clouds and similarity analyzes will be conducted to identify participants' favorite foods and most disliked foods. Phase 2 will be an experimental study to which people from phase 1 who have a desire-goal incongruence of >23 points (66th percentile) - G1, ¿12 points (33rd percentile) - G2 and with values of ]12-23] points - G0 will be invited to participate. Body composition will be assessed using a bioimpedance scale and a stadiometer. Participants will be exposed to visual stimuli and the trigger emotions assessed. For this purpose, images of different foods identified in phase 1 will be used. Then, the facial expressions will be estimated by the FaceReader® program. Participants will also have to fill out a hedonic questionnaire for each image viewed. The facial expressions (intensity and valence) of the participants of the different groups (G0, G1 and G2) will be compared using a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), after checking the assumptions of normality and homoscedasticity. The relationships between the valence, type and intensity of emotions, the scores of desire-goal incongruence, and the scores obtained for each item of the hedonic questionnaire according to type and food group will be estimated using principal component analysis (PCA). Phase 3 will be a cross-national study of Brazil and Portugal, using the same methodology as in phase 1 with students from the University Institute of Psychological, Social and Life Sciences - ISPA/IU. The transnational invariance will be estimated and structural models will be created and compared.