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Background: Brain imaging studies show evidence of selective brain reward responses to high calorie foods. Behavioral studies extend this research by showing that such foods can enhance emotions, even for sweet-tasting low calorie foods (i.e., fruits). In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that participants will show more positive emotional change when drawing pictures of foods that are high fat or taste sweet compared to bitter-tasting foods-as a possible behavioral intervention for enhancing mood. Method: Participants were randomly assigned to one of four art groups: high fat-high sugar (HFHS; stimulus food: cupcakes), high fat-low sugar (HFLS; stimulus food: pizza), low fat-high sugar (LFHS; stimulus food: strawberries), or low fat-low sugar (LFLS; stimulus food: peppers). Participants used three colors (red, green, black) in their art, were required to use all three colors, and told that the colors they use must reflect actual colors that are natural for the food depicted. Participants drew images of a stimulus food and prepost measures of mood and arousal were recorded. Results: Consistent with the hypothesis, the results show that drawing pictures of high fat foods (cupcakes, pizzas) and a food that tastes sweet (strawberries) results in greater increases in mood compared to drawing a bitter-tasting food (peppers). Changes in mood were independent of BMI, daily sugar intake, daily fat intake, arousal, and hunger. Conclusion: These results extend a growing body of biobehavioral research on the positive impact of food images on mood by showing that this impact can be applied to enhance mood when expressing food images through art.

Obesity has become a growing global concern. Evidence indicates that ecological factors are most predictive of obesity among children, and that a new strategy, referred to as emolabeling, may effectively address ecological factors, although the extent to which it can influence food choice is not yet known, but tested here. Specifically, we tested the hypothesis that children aged 3 to 11 years will use emolabels, or emotional correlates of health (i.e. healthy-happy, unhealthy-sad), to make healthy food choices. A cross-sectional design was used with two phases. In Phase 1, children were taught how to use emolabels with a "faces of health" lesson. In Phase 2, children made choices between containers that were laid out on a large table in pairs and varied by taste (tastes good, no information), social norms (popular, not popular), branding (image of a minion, no image), or preference (told what food was in each container). A control pair was labeled with only emoticons. The order and presentation of the containers were counterbalanced for each variation. Results showed that a significant proportion of children in the pre-literacy and the early literacy grades used emoticons to specifically make healthy food choices in each variation (p < .05 for all tests), except when children were told what foods were in the containers. In all, emolabeling effectively influenced food choices for healthy foods among children aged 3 to 11 years, more so than labeling for taste, social norms, and branding, but not preference.