Date Approved

10-29-2013

Date Posted

5-16-2014

Degree Type

Open Access Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department or School

Psychology

Committee Member

Natalie Dove, Ph.D., Chair

Committee Member

Karen Saules, Ph. D.

Committee Member

Alida Westman, Ph.D.

Abstract

Body fat and taste sensitivity have been explored with mixed results. Generally, studies have used Body Mass Index (BMI) as an indicator of obesity. This research study explores the relations between body fat percentage using a fairly new measure, Body Adiposity Index (BAI; Bergman et al., 2011), BMI, and the three types of taste sensitivities: non-, medium, and supertasters. Taste sensitivity was assessed using two methods: the blue food dye exam (Miller & Reedy, 1990) and the filter paper method (Zhao, Kirkmeyer, & Tepper, 2003) using the general Labeled Magnitude Scale (Bartoshuk et al., 2004) among student participants (n = 75). It was hypothesized that supertasters would have a lower BAI than non-tasters and medium tasters, and BAI would explain more of the variance among taster groups than BMI. Neither hypothesis was supported by the data. Limitations, implications, and suggestions for future research were discussed.

Included in

Psychology Commons

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