Physical activity can lead to difference in diet preferences between males, females
"Our team wanted to make every effort to study female perspectives on how exercise affects diet, because most other studies neglect females," said Jenna Lee, a doctoral candidate in the Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Program at MU. "We wanted to take a look at what drives diet preference and if environmental factors, such as physical activity, play a role in how males and females eat." The team, led by Matthew Will, an associate professor of psychological sciences in the MU College of Arts and Science, divided male and female rats into two groups -- a sedentary group and one that had access to a running wheel. Both groups ate the same food. After another week, Lee replaced the standard diet with three optional diets: high fat (similar to cookie dough), high sucrose (three times more sucrose than the other two diets), and a high-cornstarch diet. Each of the diets were matched on proteins, and the rats had continuous access to all three diets for four weeks. Re...