Figure 1.

Differences between obese and underweight individuals for the liking of sugar, sweet foods and fat foods. This figure illustrates one kind of error resulting from the erroneous assumption that the perceived intensities denoted by descriptors like ‘most intense’ do not differ across groups. (a) Shows the data obtained with the hedonic gLMS. Significance of t-tests following ANOVA are: sugar, p<0.05; sweet foods, p<0.01; and fat foods, p<0.0000001. (b) Shows how the data would look if ‘most intense’ liking for foods is erroneously assumed to be equal for both groups (see text for explanation): sugar and sweet foods no longer show significant differences between thin and obese subjects; for fat foods, p<0.0000001.