On the relationship between childhood socioeconomic status and eating preference: influence from attentional bias and decision-making style

Recent studies suggested that childhood socioeconomic status (SES) can influence peoples’ eating preferences and obesity in adulthood even when the current SES was controlled. The present study investigated the cognitive mechanism by which childhood SES influences eating preference. In Experiment 1, we examined participants’ food-related attentional bias using a free-viewing eye-tracking paradigm. The results showed that participants in the low childhood SES group had greater gaze direction bias and gaze duration bias to high-calorie food images than participants in the high childhood SES group, suggesting a stronger attentional bias to food-related information. In Experiment 2, we examined participants’ food-related decision-making style using a food delay discounting task. The results showed that compared to participants in the high childhood SES group, participants in the low childhood SES were more likely to choose smaller but sooner high-calorie food rewards than larger but later rewards (more food vouchers or an equivalent amount of money), suggesting a more impulsive decision-making style. In both experiments, participants in high and low childhood SES had similar current SES and BMI. Our results suggested that experiencing a childhood of resource scarcity might alter peoples’ cognitive preference when processing food-related information, which explains why childhood SES had a long-lasting effect on eating preference and obesity.