Training inhibitory control. A recipe for resisting sweet temptations

Abstract

When inhibitory control is lacking, people are more prone to indulge in high calorie food. This research examined whether training to inhibit food-related responses renders one less susceptible to temptations of high calorie food. Trait chocolate lovers were divided into three conditions: participants either consistently inhibited responding to chocolate stimuli (chocolate/no-go condition), consistently responded to chocolate stimuli (chocolate/go condition), or responded to chocolate stimuli only during half the trials (control condition). Chocolate consumption was measured following the manipulation with a taste test. Chocolate consumption did not differ between the control condition and the chocolate/go condition, and increased as a function of dietary restraint in both conditions. In the chocolate/no-go condition, however, chocolate consumption was significantly reduced, and higher levels of dietary restraint were associated with decreased chocolate intake. These findings demonstrate that repeatedly practicing inhibitory control over food-related responses can help people regain control over the consumption of high calorie food.

Addiction to food: how go/no-go tasks affect appetite

“…short term outcome). This finding is not in line with Houben and Jansen (2011) who did find an effect of the training looking at food intake, where food intake was lower in the intervention group. This discrepancy could be due to the food types used as the nogo cues.…”

“…Earlier studies either focused on the short term outcomes after one go/no-go training (Houben & Jansen, 2011) or the long term results after multiple trainings (Veling et al, 2014). In contrast to Houben and Jansen (2011), the present study went beyond one no-go food type, and extended it with three unhealthy food types trained for inhibition.…”

Control in Response Inhibition

“…For example, consistent pairing of food-related pictures to stopping in a go/no-go or stop-signal paradigm reduces subsequent food consumption (e.g., Houben & Jansen, 2011;Lawrence, Verbruggen, Morrison, Adams, & Chambers, 2015), and may even lead to weight loss Veling, van Koningsbruggen, Aarts, & Stroebe, 2014). Recent meta-analyses indicate that no-go/stop training has small but robust effects on food and alcohol consumption (Allom, Mullan, & Hagger, 2015;Jones et al, 2016).…”

Association, Inhibition, and Action

“…Several studies have found that consistent pairing of food-related pictures to stopping in a go/no-go or stop-signal-paradigm reduced subsequent food consumption (e.g. Houben, 2011;Houben & Jansen, 2011;Lawrence, Verbruggen, Adams, & Chambers, 2013;Veling, Aarts, & Papies, 2011;Veling, Aarts, & Stroebe, 2012). Furthermore, a similar procedure with alcohol-related stimuli reduced alcoholintake in the laboratory (Jones & Field, 2013) and even self-reported weekly alcohol intake of heavy drinking students (Houben, Havermans, Nederkoorn, & Jansen, 2012; but see Jones & Field, 2013).…”