• Julia Reichenberger, Anna Richard, Joshua M Smyth, Dana Fischer, Olga Pollatos, and Jens Blechert.
• Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria; Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria. Electronic address: Julia.Reichenberger@sbg.ac.at.
• Nutrition. 2018 Nov 1; 55-56: 15-20.

ObjectiveA key determinant of food intake besides hunger is food craving, which refers to an intense desire to consume a specific food. Although they commonly co-occur, they are conceptually different and their dissociation is thought to underlie unhealthy eating (e.g., eating in the absence of hunger). To date, we know almost nothing about their coherence (or dissociation) in daily life or about the role of time of day and different food types.MethodsThe present investigation assessed both hunger and food craving for several food categories in daily life using smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment. Across three independent studies (n = 50, n = 51, and n = 59), participants received five or six prompts a day and reported their momentary hunger and desire for tasty food (a subcomponent of food craving).ResultsConsistent across studies, hunger and desire for tasty food exhibited largely similar patterns throughout the day with two peaks (roughly corresponding to lunch and dinner). Examining more specific food categories, study 3 found that although desire for main meal-type foods had a two-peak pattern in coherence with hunger, this pattern was different for snack-type foods: Desire for fruits decreased, whereas desire for sweets and salty snacks increased throughout the day with less coherence with hunger.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that dissociations between hunger and craving are found only for snack-type foods, whereas hunger and general food cravings cohere strongly. Interventions addressing snacking may take these circadian patterns of food cravings into account.Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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