Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

The genetics of eating behaviors: research in the age of COVID-19

View ORCID ProfileMackenzie E. Hannum, View ORCID ProfileCailu Lin, View ORCID ProfileKatherine Bell, View ORCID ProfileAurora Toskala, Riley Koch, Tharaka Galaniha, View ORCID ProfileAlissa Nolden, View ORCID ProfileDanielle R Reed, View ORCID ProfilePaule Joseph
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.09.03.458854
Mackenzie E. Hannum
1Monell Chemical Senses Center, 3500 Market St, Philadelphia, PA, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Mackenzie E. Hannum
Cailu Lin
1Monell Chemical Senses Center, 3500 Market St, Philadelphia, PA, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Cailu Lin
Katherine Bell
1Monell Chemical Senses Center, 3500 Market St, Philadelphia, PA, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Katherine Bell
Aurora Toskala
1Monell Chemical Senses Center, 3500 Market St, Philadelphia, PA, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Aurora Toskala
Riley Koch
1Monell Chemical Senses Center, 3500 Market St, Philadelphia, PA, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Tharaka Galaniha
2Department of Food Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Alissa Nolden
2Department of Food Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Alissa Nolden
Danielle R Reed
1Monell Chemical Senses Center, 3500 Market St, Philadelphia, PA, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Danielle R Reed
  • For correspondence: reed@monell.org
Paule Joseph
3National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Bethesda, MD, USA
4National Institute of Nursing Research, Bethesda, MD, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Paule Joseph
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Supplementary material
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

How much pleasure we take in eating is more than just how much we enjoy the taste of food. Food involvement – the amount of time we spend on food beyond the immediate act of eating and tasting – is key to the human food experience. We took a biological approach to test whether food-related behaviors, together capturing food involvement, have genetic components and are partly due to inherited variation. We collected data via an internet survey from a genetically informative sample of 419 adult twins (114 monozygotic twin pairs, 31 dizygotic twin pairs, and 129 singletons). Because we conducted this research during the pandemic, we also ascertained how many participants had experienced COVID-19-associated loss of taste and smell. Since these respondents had previously participated in research in person, we measured their level of engagement to evaluate the quality of their online responses. Additive genetics explained 16-44% of the variation in some measures of food involvement, most prominently various aspects of cooking, suggesting some features of the human food experience may be inborn. Other features reflected shared (early) environment, captured by respondents’ twin status. About 6% of participants had a history of COVID-19 infection, many with transitory taste and smell loss, but all but one had recovered before the survey. Overall, these results suggest that people may have inborn as well as learned variations in their involvement with food. We also learned to adapt to research during a pandemic by considering COVID-19 status and measuring engagement in online studies of human eating behavior.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

  • Abbreviations

    EQ
    Engagement Questionnaire
    FIS
    Food Involvement Score
    MZ
    monozygotic
    DZ
    dizygotic
  • Copyright 
    The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
    Back to top
    PreviousNext
    Posted September 05, 2021.
    Download PDF

    Supplementary Material

    Email

    Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

    NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

    Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
    The genetics of eating behaviors: research in the age of COVID-19
    (Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
    (Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
    CAPTCHA
    This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
    Share
    The genetics of eating behaviors: research in the age of COVID-19
    Mackenzie E. Hannum, Cailu Lin, Katherine Bell, Aurora Toskala, Riley Koch, Tharaka Galaniha, Alissa Nolden, Danielle R Reed, Paule Joseph
    bioRxiv 2021.09.03.458854; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.09.03.458854
    Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
    Citation Tools
    The genetics of eating behaviors: research in the age of COVID-19
    Mackenzie E. Hannum, Cailu Lin, Katherine Bell, Aurora Toskala, Riley Koch, Tharaka Galaniha, Alissa Nolden, Danielle R Reed, Paule Joseph
    bioRxiv 2021.09.03.458854; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.09.03.458854

    Citation Manager Formats

    • BibTeX
    • Bookends
    • EasyBib
    • EndNote (tagged)
    • EndNote 8 (xml)
    • Medlars
    • Mendeley
    • Papers
    • RefWorks Tagged
    • Ref Manager
    • RIS
    • Zotero
    • Tweet Widget
    • Facebook Like
    • Google Plus One

    Subject Area

    • Genetics
    Subject Areas
    All Articles
    • Animal Behavior and Cognition (4079)
    • Biochemistry (8750)
    • Bioengineering (6467)
    • Bioinformatics (23314)
    • Biophysics (11719)
    • Cancer Biology (9135)
    • Cell Biology (13227)
    • Clinical Trials (138)
    • Developmental Biology (7404)
    • Ecology (11360)
    • Epidemiology (2066)
    • Evolutionary Biology (15078)
    • Genetics (10390)
    • Genomics (14001)
    • Immunology (9109)
    • Microbiology (22025)
    • Molecular Biology (8773)
    • Neuroscience (47317)
    • Paleontology (350)
    • Pathology (1419)
    • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2480)
    • Physiology (3701)
    • Plant Biology (8044)
    • Scientific Communication and Education (1427)
    • Synthetic Biology (2206)
    • Systems Biology (6009)
    • Zoology (1247)