Introduction to special issue: Self-regulation of appetite-it's complicated

A meeting of multidisciplinary biobehavioral scientists and National Institutes of Health (NIH) program staff was convened by the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research, Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives, Office of the Director, NIH to examine mechanisms associated with humans' ability to self-regulate appetite and appetitive behavior.

Based upon prior discussions of the NIH Obesity Research Task Force Behavioral Phenotyping Work Group, the premise was adopted that, in modern society, multiple factors on multiple levels interact to create circumstances wherein self-control of appetite is difficult, leading to overconsumption of unhealthy foods versus healthy eating patterns, contributing to our current levels of obesity. Through presentations and group discussions, the panel examined how foundational processes/mechanisms directly and indirectly affect appetitive behavior and how these processes can be manipulated to affect food intake and thereby weight. The meeting identified evidence-based mechanisms with the potential to impact self-regulation of appetite and appetitive states (hunger, satiety, food wanting, restraint, reward) and associated behaviors such as overconsumption, eating in the absence of hunger, food seeking, and decision-making that could inform novel weight intervention strategies in free-living, nonlaboratory settings.

The three summary papers contained in this issue represent the synthesis of the material presented at the meeting and the panel's recommendations on how existing evidence regarding mechanisms and pathways to appetitive behavior can be used to inform future research and novel prevention and intervention strategies to impact prevalence of obesity.