Abstract
BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Perceptions of obesity critically influence people's eating behaviors and responses to food stimuli. However, few studies have investigated the impact of negative body perception on behavioral and neural responses to food stimuli. This study investigates how elevated body dissatisfaction modulates food-related inhibitory control. METHODS: Fifty-one participants comprising three cohorts-overweight/obese individuals (OO), normal-weight participants exhibiting high negative body image (HNN), and healthy controls-performed a food-specific inhibitory control task under EEG recording. RESULTS: The results showed that the HNN cohort achieved superior no-go accuracy and enhanced inhibitory control compared to controls. An event-related potentials (ERPs) analysis revealed increased conflict detection (P200) for high-calorie foods and reduced conflict resolution (LPP) in the HNN group, similar to the overweight/obese group. A multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) identified earlier neural discrimination in the HNN group, suggesting more efficient inhibitory processing. CONCLUSIONS: These findings underscore negative body perception as a critical modulator of food-related cognitive control mechanisms.