The Flair study

It is thought that overweight people may be more sensitive to the sight and smell of foods (‘external food cues’), which are abundant in today’s societies. The four-month Flair study conducted in cooperation with Wageningen University, division of Human Nutrition in the Restaurant of the Future aimed to measure the differences in food cue reactivity between overweight and lean participants.

Twenty-five overweight and twenty-five fit female participants were exposed to scents in three different categories (non-food, high-energy food and low-energy food) and in two motivational states (hungry and satiated). Each session measured the participants’ behavioural, psychological and physiological responses, including salivation rate, mood, food choice, food intake, heart rate frequency and skin conductance. Initial results demonstrated no difference in food preference as a result of exposure to different scents. High-energy products were chosen significantly more often and food intake was larger in a hungry state compared to the satiated state. Heart rate and food choice data showed that overweight participants tended to be less sensitive to their internal state compared to normal weight participants. The implication of these preliminary results will contribute to strategies to combat obesity.

Why call it the Flair study? Flair – from the Latin fragrare, emit a sweet odour’ initially meant simply ‘odour.’ It ultimately came to refer to the ability to detect the ‘essence’ or ‘scent’ of something and know how to act accordingly.