Objective: To examine the effects of lunches with different dietary energy densities on food preferences between genders. Design: Randomized crossover study. Participants were administered the following packed test meals once weekly on a specified day during six sessions: control (150 g of rice with a sautéed beef entrée containing 40 g of raw beef and 240 g of vegetables), high-meat/low-rice, low-vegetable, medium-fat/low-vegetable, high-fat and high-fat/low-vegetable meals. Subjective levels of sensory properties were assessed over time using visual analogue scales. Setting: University of Tokushima Graduate School, Tokushima, Japan. Subjects: Sixty-five men and sixty-five women matched by age and BMI. Results: Men showed significantly stronger desires for salty and fatty foods after meals (P < 0·05). Women showed a significantly stronger desire for sweetness from 2 h after the low-vegetable meal, and increasing fat content under highvegetable conditions caused a significant stimulated sweetness desire in women more than in men (P < 0·05). Moreover, after a high-meat/low-rice meal with 100 g of rice, sweetness desire was stronger in women (P = 0·024), whereas no significant differences in sweetness desire were shown between genders after another low-energy-density control meal with 150 g of rice.Conclusions: Men had significantly stronger desires for salty and fatty foods, whereas women preferred sweet food after meals. The sweetness desire in women was stimulated by increasing fat content, even with a high vegetable intake. Low rice intake in a low-energy-density diet also caused a relative stimulation of sweetness desire in women.
Keywords
Energy density Food preference Gender differencesSweetness desireNutritional strategies that can prevent weight gain are considered to be a result of controlling appetite and energy intake during normal daily life (1) . Controlled studies show that energy intake is closely associated with the energy density (ED) of the diet, which enables individuals to consume a satisfying amount of food when it is lower in ED (2-4) . Thus, reducing the ED of the total diet may be a nutritionally sound strategy for the management of body weight (5) . Many factors affecting the sensory properties of food may contribute to the effects of ED on energy intake and eating behaviour as foods are consumed (6) . Because observational studies have indicated a relationship between food consumption and intensity of food taste (7) , attention needs to be paid to the perceptions of food-related pleasantness as well as fullness and satisfaction after food intake. The brain controls eating behaviour and it responds differentially to food depending on factors such as body mass (8) , mood (9) and age (10) . Another potential factor that cannot be neglected regarding its effects on eating behaviour is the gender difference. Men and women often have different social perceptions regarding the sensory properties of food, because women pay more attention to nutrition content than men (11) . Despite numer...