Abstract
The food environment can interact with cognitive processing and influence eating behaviour. Our objective was to characterize the impact of implicit olfactory priming on inhibitory control towards food, in groups with different weight status. Ninety-two adults completed the Food Inhibition Task: they had to detect target stimuli and ignore distractor stimuli while primed with non-attentively perceived odours. We measured reactivity and inhibitory control towards food pictures. In all participants, food pictures were detected more quickly and induced more disinhibition than neutral pictures. Only individuals with obesity were slower to detect foods when primed with a high energy-dense food odour than in control conditions. Common mechanisms were observed for the top-down processing of foods, regardless of weight status, but we observed specific priming effects related to weight status on bottom-up processes. Our results contribute to current knowledge regarding the relationship between cognitive load and food reactivity in an obesogenic environment.