The Effect of Increasing BMI on Reaction Time, Sustained Attention and Working Memory in Children and Adolescents

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Department of Cognitive Psychology, Institute for Cognitive Sciences Studies, Tehran, Iran

2 Department of Psychology, Kharazmi University and Institute for Cognitive Science Studies,Tehran,Iran

3 Department of Nutritional Sciences and Dietetics, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran,Iran.

4 PHD Student in Cognitive Psychology, Institute for Cognitive Sciences Studies, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the effect of increasing body mass index (BMI) on cognitive functions such as reaction time, sustained attention, and visuospatial working memory in children and adolescents. The research method is causal-comparative, and is a basic study in terms of purpose. The statistical population of the present study consists of all high school students (12–15 years old) in Tehran in 2019, among which 75 students (36 girls and 39 boys) were selected by convenience sampling method and classified into three groups of obese, overweight and normal weight based on BMI. All participants completed the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) to assess cognitive performance and BMI was also measured. Data were analyzed using SPSS software (version 26). The results of multivariate analysis of variance showed that obese students performed worse on the tests of reaction time and visuospatial working memory than the normal and overweight groups, and their difference is significant (p 0.01). Accordingly, one can say that increasing fat and BMI levels lead to a decrease in some cognitive functions and this may delay or decrease the development of students’ academic and social skills.

Keywords

References

  • دادخواه، ی.، و احمدی مرزدشتی، ن. (1397). مجموعه آزمون­های عصب‌روان‌شناختی CANTAB. تهران: انتشارات نارون دانش.
  • رضایی نیاسر، آ.، زارع، ح.، و برجسته، ف. (2017). ارزیابی عملکرد شناختی کودکان دارای مشکل اضافه وزن و چاق در آزمون برج لندن و آزمون استروپ در مقایسه با کودکان دارای وزن نرمال.فصلنامۀ علمی-پژوهشی روان‌شناسی سلامت. 6(22)، 50-35.
  • Batterink, L., Yokum, S., & Stice, E. (2010). Body mass correlates inversely with inhibitory control in response to food among adolescent girls: An fMRI study. Neuroimage. 52(4), 1696-1703.
  • Brewin, C. R., & Beaton, A. (2002). Thought suppression, intelligence, and working memory capacity. Behaviour Research and Therapy. 40(8), 923-930.
  • Cserjési, R., Molnár, D., Luminet, O., & Lénárd, L. (2007). Is there any relationship between obesity and mental flexibility in children?  49(3), 675-678.
  • Davis, C. L., & Cooper, S. (2011). Fitness, fatness, cognition, behavior, and academic achievement among overweight children: Do cross-sectional associations correspond to exercise trial outcomes? Preventive Medicine. 52, S65-S69.
  • Der, G., & Deary, I. J. (2006). Age and sex differences in reaction time in adulthood: Results from the United Kingdom Health and Lifestyle Survey. Psychology and Aging. 21(1), 62-73.
  • Diamond, A., & Lee, K. (2011). Interventions shown to aid executive function development in children 4 to 12 years old. Science. 333(6045), 959-964.
  • Diamond, A. (2013). Executive functions. Annual Review of Psychology. 64, 135-168.
  • Esmaeilzadeh, S. (2014). Reaction time: Does it relate to weight status in children? 65(2), 171-178.
  • Francis, L. A., & Susman, E. J. (2009). Self-regulation and rapid weight gain in children from age 3 to 12 years. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. 163(4), 297-302.
  • Friese, M., Hofmann, W., & Wänke, M. (2008). When impulses take over: Moderated predictive validity of explicit and implicit attitude measures in predicting food choice and consumption behaviour. British Journal of Social Psychology. 47(3), 397-419. ‏
  • García-García, I., Jurado, M. Á., Garolera, M., Marqués-Iturria, I., Horstmann, A., Segura, B., Pueyo, R., Sender-Palacios, M. J., Vernet-Vernet, M., Villringer, A., Junqué, C., Margulies, D. S., & Neumann, J. (2015). Functional network centrality in obesity: A resting-state and task fMRI study. Psychiatry research, 233(3), 331–338. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pscychresns.2015.05.017
  • Gentier, I., Augustijn, M., Deforche, B., Tanghe, A., De Bourdeaudhuij, I., Lenoir, M., & D’Hondt, E. (2013). A comparative study of performance in simple and choice reaction time tasks between obese and healthy-weight children. Research in Developmental Disabilities. 34(9), 2635-2641. ‏
  • Gillman, M. W., & Cook, N. R. (1995). Blood pressure measurement in childhood epidemiological studies. 92(4), 1049-1057.
  • Graziano, P. A., Calkins, S. D., & Keane, S. P. (2010). Toddler self-regulation skills predict risk for pediatric obesity. International Journal of Obesity. 34(4), 633-641.
  • Gunstad, J., Paul, R. H., Cohen, R. A., Tate, D. F., Spitznagel, M. B., Grieve, S., & Gordon, E. (2008). Relationship between body mass index and brain volume in healthy adults. International Journal of Neuroscience. 118(11), 1582-1593. ‏
  • Hofmann, W., Friese, M., & Roefs, A. (2009). Three ways to resist temptation: The independent contributions of executive attention, inhibitory control, and affect regulation to the impulse control of eating behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 45(2), 431-435. ‏
  • Hofmann, W., Schmeichel, B. J., & Baddeley, A. D. (2012). Executive functions and self-regulation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 16(3), 174-180.
  • Hongwanishkul, D., Happaney, K. R., Lee, W. S., & Zelazo, P. D. (2005). Assessment of hot and cool executive function in young children: Age-related changes and individual differences. Developmental Neuropsychology. 28(2), 617-644.
  • Houben, K., Dassen, F. C., & Jansen, A. (2016). Taking control: Working memory training in overweight individuals increases self-regulation of food intake. Appetite. 105, 567-574.
  • Jafari-Adli, S., Jouyandeh, Z., Qorbani, M., Soroush, A., Larijani, B., & Hasani-Ranjbar, S. (2014). Prevalence of obesity and overweight in adults and children in Iran; a systematic review. Journal of Diabetes & Metabolic Disorders. 13(1), 121.
  • Jansen, P., Schmelter, A., Kasten, L., and Heil, M. (2011). Impaired mental rotation performance in overweight children. Appetite. 56, 766–769.
  • Kamijo, K., Khan, N. A., Pontifex, M. B., Scudder, M. R., Drollette, E. S., Raine, L. B., & Hillman, C. H. (2012). The relation of adiposity to cognitive control and scholastic achievement in preadolescent children. Obesity. 20(12), 2406-2411.
  • Kamijo, K., Pontifex, M. B., Khan, N. A., Raine, L. B., Scudder, M. R., Drollette, E. S., & Hillman, C. H. (2014). The negative association of childhood obesity to cognitive control of action monitoring. Cerebral Cortex. 24(3), 654-662.
  • Kuczmarski, R. J., Ogden, C. L., Grummer-Strawn, L. M., Flegal, K. M., Guo, S. S., Wei, R., Mei, Z., Curtin, L. R., Roche, A. F., & Johnson, C. L. (2000). CDC growth charts: United States. Advance data, (314), 1–27.
  • Liang, J., Matheson, B. E., Kaye, W. H., & Boutelle, K. N. (2014). Neurocognitive correlates of obesity and obesity-related behaviors in children and adolescents. International Journal of Obesity. 38(4), 494-506. ‏
  • Lokken, K. L., Boeka, A. G., Austin, H. M., Gunstad, J., & Harmon, C. M. (2009). Evidence of executive dysfunction in extremely obese adolescents: A pilot study. Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases. 5(5), 547-552. ‏
  • Luciana, M., Sullivan, J., & Nelson, C. A. (2001). Associations between phenylalanine‐to‐tyrosine ratios and performance on tests of neuropsychological function in adolescents treated early and continuously for phenylketonuria. Child Development. 72(6), 1637-1652.
  • Maayan, L., Hoogendoorn, C., Sweat, V., & Convit, A. (2011). Disinhibited eating in obese adolescents is associated with orbitofrontal volume reductions and executive dysfunction. Obesity. 19(7), 1382-1387.
  • Martin, A., Booth, J. N., Young, D., Revie, M., Boyter, A. C., Johnston, B., & Reilly, J. J. (2016). Associations between obesity and cognition in the pre‐school years. Obesity. 24(1), 207-214. ‏
  • Moradi, A., & Esmaeilzadeh, S. (2015). Association between reaction time, speed and agility in schoolboys. Sport Sciences for Health. 11(3), 251-256. ‏
  • Murray, N. P., & Russoniello, C. (2012). Acute physical activity on cognitive function: A heart rate variability examination. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback. 37(4), 219-227. ‏
  • NILSSON, L. G., & Nilsson, E. (2009). Overweight and cognition. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. 50(6), 660-667. ‏
  • Pauli-Pott, U., Albayrak, Ö., Hebebrand, J., & Pott, W. (2010). Association between inhibitory control capacity and body weight in overweight and obese children and adolescents: Dependence on age and inhibitory control component. Child Neuropsychology. 16(6), 592-603. ‏
  • Reinert, K. R., Po'e, E. K., & Barkin, S. L. (2013). The relationship between executive function and obesity in children and adolescents: A systematic literature review. Journal of Obesity. 2013, 1-10.
  • Sibley, B. A., & Etnier, J. L. (2003). The relationship between physical activity and cognition in children: A meta-analysis. Pediatric Exercise Science. 15(3), 243-256.
  • Verdejo-García, A., Pérez-Expósito, M., Schmidt-Río-Valle, J., Fernández-Serrano, M. J., Cruz, F., Pérez-García, M., López-Belmonte, G., Martín-Matillas, M., Martín-Lagos, J. A., Marcos, A., & Campoy, C. (2010). Selective alterations within executive functions in adolescents with excess weight. Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.), 18(8), 1572–1578.
  • Wang, Y., & Lobstein, T. I. M. (2006). Worldwide trends in childhood overweight and obesity. International Journal of Pediatric obesity. 1(1), 11-25.
  • Wille, N., Erhart, M., Petersen, C., & Ravens-Sieberer, U. (2008). The impact of overweight and obesity on health-related quality of life in childhood–results from an intervention study. BMC Public Health. 8(1), 1-9.
  • Wirt, T., Schreiber, A., Kesztyüs, D., & Steinacker, J. M. (2015). Early life cognitive abilities and body weight: Cross-sectional study of the association of inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and sustained attention with BMI percentiles in primary school children. Journal of Obesity. 2015, 1-10.

 

 

Journal of Applied Psychological Research
Volume 12, Issue 2
September 2021
Pages 123-138

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics