4.1. Limitations
obesity, weight gain
OBESITY, PATHOLOGY
Despite the fact that the study used a large sample and replicates previous studies showing that DD is related to both food insecurity and obesity, and DD may help explain the food insecurity-obesity paradox, there are limitations to the study. First, the study only included women, as food insecurity has a greater impact on obesity in women than men [While the atemporal mediational model suggested an influence of DD on the relation between food insecurity and BMI, the study was cross-sectional. We believe that cross-sectional studies can provide ideas for future prospective analyses of mediators, but prospective research testing whether DD mediates the relation between food insecurity and weight gain is needed. One hypothesis for a prospective study might be that low income is associated with food insecurity only when people have a narrow temporal window for decision-making and discount the future, and that discounting of the future also mediates the relation between food insecurity and weight gain. Since research has shown that low income is associated with greater food reinforcement, unpredictable access to food can increase the reinforcing value of food, including food reinforcement plus DD using reinforcer pathology theory in future research may provide greater explanatory power than DD alone. Another potential limitation is that only discounting of money was measured, and discounting of food may be a more sensitive measure for people with food insecurity, as shown by Rodriguez and colleagues [