FOOD STIMULI AND GENDER

60

5.1 Main Findings
The results clearly indicate a gender difference in the perception of food stimuli.
Women showed an increased attentional bias toward low-calorie foods compared to men,
and men showed an increased attentional bias toward high-calorie foods compared to
women. Women had a significantly higher mean value for the ET variables TFD, TVD, and
FC for the low-calorie stimuli compared to men. This finding indicates that women paid
attention to low-calorie stimuli for a longer amount of time. A lower mean value for the VC
variable in the group of women indicates a lower number of visits; this finding could be
cautiously interpreted as an indicator of lower indesicion.
The group of men had a significantly higher mean value on all ET variables for the
high-calorie stimuli compared to women. The gender differences were significant for the
TFD and TVD measures in the low-calorie stimuli and all eye-tracking variables in the highcalorie stimuli. This information confirms that women showed an increased attentional bias
toward low-calorie foods such as fruit and vegetables compared to men. These results are in
accordance with some studies that have found that women choose healthier foods than men
(Rolls et al., 1991; Westenhoefer, 2005).
In the results of the current study, women did not exhibit a bias toward high-calorie
sweet foods. Men showed an increased attentional bias toward both sweet and savory highcalorie foods compared to women. A previous study on food preferences and studies on
dietary intake have reported gender differences concerning sweet and savory foods (Alley
& Burroughs, 1989; Bugge & Lavik, 2012; Hiroyasu et al., 2005; Wansink et al., 2003). The
results of the current study did not reveal a gender bias concerning sweet and savory in
accordance with previous studies that did not find any significant difference in the
preferences (Alley & Burroughs, 1989; Alley & Burroughs, 1991; Bègue et al., 2015).