Relationships Among Dietary Cognitive Restraint, Food Preferences, and Reaction Times

Abstract

ObjectiveTo assess the associations between dietary cognitive restraint, disinhibited eating, and how taste and health perceptions relate to food preference; and further, whether cognitive restraint and disinhibited eating are associated with food preference decision reaction time.MethodsFive hundred and seventeen adults participated in the study. Dietary cognitive restraint and disinhibited eating were assessed using the shortened Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ-R18). Participants also completed a dietary decision-making task to examine their food-related decisions. Participants were presented with 50 food items and asked to rate them for health and for taste. Participants were then presented with a reference food item and comparison items one at a time and asked to indicate which of the two foods they would prefer to eat.ResultsParticipants with higher levels of cognitive restraint were more sensitive to health perceptions whereas those with higher levels of disinhibited eating were more sensitive to taste perceptions when indicating food preference. Reaction time analysis corroborated these results. Being classified as high for cognitive restraint was associated with faster reaction times if the preferred food was rated as healthier than the referent food. Conversely, being classified as high for disinhibited eating was associated with faster reaction times if the preferred food was rated as tastier than the referent food.ConclusionThe dietary decision-making task appears to capture distinct aspects of dietary restraint and disinhibition and may be useful in future studies to measure and/or alter levels of dietary restraint and disinhibition.

Eating Behaviors, Depressive Symptoms and Lifestyle in University Students in Poland

“…However, cognitive restraint was connected with higher BMI, which is consistent with some previous research [ 79 , 80 , 82 , 83 , 84 ]; opposite results were also reported [ 85 ]. Association between CR and obesity is complex.…”

“…Uncontrolled eating was associated with a higher BMI, higher consumption of alcohol, and a tendency to eat more sugar, sweets, and snacks. Higher BMI among uncontrolled eaters was demonstrated in previous studies [ 82 , 83 , 89 ] and our results add to these. In a study by de Lauzon et al [ 35 ], in the teenagers and young adult group, higher uncontrolled eaters reported a higher alcoholic beverage intake than medium uncontrolled eaters, whereas Aoun et al observed this relationship only in males [ 79 ].…”

“…In a study by van Strien et al, adult women with higher dietary restraint scores had an increased risk of developing obesity [ 86 ]. It is also possible that people with a higher body mass index are more concerned with their dietary intake and are actively trying to control or reduce their weight and restraint eating is a way to control food cravings and diet effectively [ 76 , 82 ]. In a study by de Lauzon-Guillain et al [ 87 ], which assessed the relations between eating behavior and adiposity in a general population over a 2-year period, a higher initial BMI was associated with a greater increase in the cognitive restraint score in all subjects.…”

Restrained Eating and Vegan, Vegetarian and Omnivore Dietary Intakes

“…Recent studies have suggested that high fruit and vegetable consumption may be a causal factor in promoting states of positive well-being and eudaemonic well-being as well [55,56]. Dietary cognitive restraint has been also shown to be positively associated with self-reported consumption of healthy foods [57]. Based on these results, it could be supposed that adhering to a vegetarian diet may be related with positive feelings and lead to conscious restriction of food intake in order to control body weight or to promote weight loss.…”

A Dieting Facilitator on the Fridge Door: Can Dieters Deliberately Apply Environmental Dieting Cues to Lose Weight?

“…Correspondingly, activated goals have been shown to have stronger effects on behavior when the positive affect related to the goals was higher-in other words, when goals were highly valued by the individuals holding the goals (see Bargh, 2016; see Papies, 2016b;Weingarten et al, 2016). Also in line with this, environmental dieting cues have been shown to have a particularly pronounced effect on individuals who hold a chronic dieting goal, the restrained eaters (Herman and Mack, 1975;Herman and Polivy, 1980;Weingarten et al, 2016;Polivy and Herman, 2017;see Buckland et al, 2018;Masterson et al, 2019). For example, only restrained eaters tasted fewer meat samples in a butcher shop when exposed to a poster on the entrance door that announced a weekly recipe as being low-calorie and "good for a slim figure" (Papies and Hamstra, 2010).…”