When food is involved, obese women have a deficit in reward-based learning, according to a recent study.

However, researchers found that those same women have no trouble at all forming accurate associations when the reward is money instead of food. The findings may lead to new, gender-appropriate ways to tackle the obesity epidemic.

"Our study shows that obesity may involve a specific impairment not in the processing of food itself, but rather in how obese individuals -- or at least obese women -- learn about cues in the environment that predict food," researcher Ifat Levy of Yale University said in a statement. "This is not a general learning impairment, as obese women had no problem [learning] when the reward was money rather than food. An intriguing possibility is that, by modifying flawed associations between food and environmental cues, we may be able to change eating patterns."

For the study, researchers presented participants with one of two colored squares followed by a reward (a picture of either money or food) or not to test the ability of normal-weight and obese men and women of acquiring and modifying cue-reward associations. Later, the researchers reversed that predictable color association. Along the way, study participants were asked to predict the likelihood of a reward after seeing one color or another.

Researchers found that obese women struggled to make those predictions as accurately as normal-weight individuals or as obese men did when the reward was food, either pretzels or chocolate candies, as opposed to money. The gender difference came as a surprise to the researchers, who say they had expected to see a similar pattern in both obese men and women.

Researchers said they findings suggest that an immediate clinical shift of focus may be in order for at least some individuals looking to lose weight.

"Instead of focusing on reactions to the food itself, our results call for shifting attention to the way obese individuals learn about the environment and how they approach or ignore cues associated with food," the researchers write. "Rather than target these individuals' behavior with food, we suggest that a successful intervention should aim to modify their interactions with other cues that determine their eating patterns."