Odor–Taste–Texture interactions as a promising strategy to tackle adolescent overweight

The adolescence period is characterized by a considerable risk to weight gain due to the high consumption of food rich in sugar. A promising strategy to reduce sugar consumption may lie in exploiting the ability of our senses to interact to each other (cross-modal interactions). The aims were to investigate the cross-modal interactions and gustatory function in normal-weight and overweight adolescents. Fifty adolescents (25 overweight and 25 normal-weight) were involved. Subjects rated liking and attribute intensity in pudding samples obtained by adding vanilla aroma (0.1%; 0.3%), butter aroma (0.05%; 0.1%) or a thickener agent (1%; 1.5%) to a base formu-lation. The gustatory function was also measured through the “taste strips” methodology. Over-weight adolescents were found to have a significantly (p < 0.001) worse ability to correctly iden-tify all tastes. Cross-modal interactions occurred differently according to their body mass index, with a significant increase (p < 0.05) in sensory desirable characteristics (e.g., sweet and creami-ness) due to aroma addition, especially in overweight subjects. Furthermore, butter aroma signif-icantly increased hedonic responses only in overweight subjects. Tricking our senses in the way of perceiving sensory attributes could be a promising strategy to develop innovative food formula-tions with a reduced sugar amount, which will lead to a potential decrease in caloric intake and help to tackle the obesity epidemic.