Adults with overweight or obesity use less efficient memory strategies compared to adults with healthy weight on a verbal list learning task modified with food words.

Several studies suggest poorer episodic memory among adults with overweight (OW) relative to those with healthy weight (HW); however, few have used food stimuli. To understand the salience of food-related items when assessing memory, we adapted an episodic memory task, by replacing some non-food words with snack foods. Participants were 96 weight-loss seeking adults with OW compared to 48 adults with HW from the community matched on age, gender, ethnicity, and education.

Neurocognitive Treatments for Eating Disorders and Obesity.

Purpose Of Review: Recent research has highlighted executive function and neurocognitive deficits among individuals with eating and weight disorders, identifying a potential target for treatment. Treatments targeting executive function for eating and weight disorders are emerging. This review aims to summarize the recent literature evaluating neurocognitive/executive function-oriented treatments for eating and weight disorders and highlights additional work needed in this area.