Abstract
The NEW Soul study was a 2-year, 2-group randomized controlled trial intervention in South Carolina comparing the effects of a vegan (plant based) diet to those of a low-fat (< 30%) omnivorous diet among African American adults, ages 18-65 years old, and with overweight or obesity. The current study assessed changes in the Power of Food Scale (PFS) scores-a measure of hedonic hunger using three domains (food available, food tasted, and food present)-by group across the study and the relationship between changes in PFS scores and weight loss among all participants such that increases in PFS scores were associated with less weight loss. We used repeated measures models to compare changes in scores by group. We also used repeated measures models to see if changes in scores were associated with changes in weight, controlling for employment status, education, food security status, sex, and age. There were no differences in PFS scores between the vegan and low-fat omnivorous groups across time; however, both groups showed decreases in PFS domain scores over time suggesting reduced hedonic hunger among all participants. Furthermore, while score changes in the food available and food tasted domains were not associated with weight change, significant associations were observed for the food present domain and the total PFS scores (p < 0.05 for both). Future studies should more closely target food available, tasted, and present domains to see if changes are associated with weight loss. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT03354377.