Don’t mind if I do: Disinhibited eating under cognitive load

Abstract

Past research has shown that strong emotional or motivational states can cause normally restrained eaters to overeat. In this article it is argued that simple cognitive load can also disinhibit eating by restrained eaters. Two studies examined this disinhibition effect. In Study 1, restrained and unrestrained eaters were given the opportunity to consume high-calorie food while performing either a high cognitive-load or low cognitive-load task. Restrained eaters consumed more food when under high cognitive load than when under low cognitive load; unrestrained eaters showed the opposite pattern. Study 2 replicated the disinhibition effect and ruled out stress, diminished awareness of food consumption, and ironic rebound as probable mediators. Results suggest that cognitive load may disinhibit consumption by preventing restrained eaters from monitoring the dietary consequences of their eating behavior. Implications for theories of self-regulation are discussed. Dieting is like holding your breath. —John Foreyt, quoted in the newsletter Environmental Nutrition There is perhaps no behavior that Americans struggle more to inhibit than their own consumption of food. At any one time approximately 40 % of women and 25 % of men report they are on a diet to control their weight (Williamson, Serdula, Anda, & Levy, 1992), contributing an estimated 30 to 50 billion dollars a year to the weight-loss industry (Gladwell, 1998). And yet, nearly 95 % of individuals fail at their initial attempt to diet (Garner & Wooley, 1991), most resolving to try again, hoping that next time will bring success. But can they succeed? Or is dieting, as our opening quote suggests, ultimately doomed to fail? Chronic dieting, or what has been called restrained eating (Herman & Polivy, 1980), like the inhibition of most pleasurable activities, entails self-regulation, an overriding of a normal re