Abstract
Obesity and overweight problems belong among important international public health problems. The prevalence has more than doubled over the last three decades.
The causes associated with increased body weight are complex and heterogenous. The issue of impulsivity/self-control plays an important role in pathological dietary behavior and is in large related to weight gain.
Impulsivity is a multidimensional construct, which is being studied for its relation to number of different forms of problematic behaviors related to health, as well as a determinant of increased body weight (overweight or obesity) but with mixed results. This articles summarized the topic of obesity and overweight problems and introduces behavioral measures applied in assessing the relation to impulsivity, specifically the discounting paradigm.
Delay discounting represent objective impulsivity measures. Previous studies done on adults suggest that impulsivity relates to body weight, as obese individuals have a tendency to prefer smaller, more immediate reward over larger but delayed one.
The results of gratification studies are beneficial for improving, understanding, and predicting all of different kinds of risk behaviors. Based on this method using different commodities, it is possible to significantly contribute to predicting specific health-related problems.