Dieting and overeating

Purpose: After a calorie-restricted diet, most people regain most of their lost body weight. The present chapter focuses on two possible psychological explanations for this weight regain (1) as caused by possible side effects of dieting, specifically the disinhibition effect (the overeating by dieters after they abandoned their dietary restraint), and (2) as caused by the fact that most treatments do not address possible causes of emotional eating (EE). Findings: The disinhibition effect, though a robust phenomenon when dietary restraint was measured with the Restraint Scale, could not be replicated with other measures for restraint. This generated a discussion i) how restraint should best be measured and conceptualized and (ii) whether the disinhibition effect holds true for all dieters or whether it is only found in a subgroup of dieters, the so-called unsuccessful dieters. Unsuccessful dieters combine high dietary restraint with high overeating tendencies. It is further noted that the disinhibitor "ego threat" elicits EE. However, disinhibition requires prior inhibition (i.e., restraint) by definition. Because restrained eating may be both cause and consequence of EE, also evidence on possible causes of EE (independent from dieting) is presented, in addition to evidence on EE as marker of atypical depression (the subtype of depression associated with increased appetite and weight gain). Implications for treatment: Side effects of dieting and associations of EE with alexithymia (difficulty in identifying and describing emotions) and atypical depression suggest that treatment of obesity should not automatically consist of prescribing calorie-restricted diets. Instead treatments should match with an individual’s eating style. The DEBQ (Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire) enables such matched treatment of obesity

Food acceptability in field studies with US army men and women: relationship with food intake and food choice after repeated exposures

Laboratory data with single exposures showed that palatability has a positive relationship with food intake. The question addressed in this study is whether this relationship also holds over repeated exposures in non-laboratory contexts in more natural environments. The data were collected in four field studies, lasting 4-11 days with 307 US Army men and 119 Army women, and comprised 5791 main meals and 8831 snacks in total. Acceptability was rated on the nine point hedonic scale, and intake was registered in units of 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, or 1 or more times of the provided portion size. Correlation coefficients between individual acceptability ratings and intakes varied from 0.22 to 0.62 for the main meals (n=193-2267), and between 0.13 and 0.56 for the snacks (n=304-2967). The likelihood of choosing a meal for the second time was positively related to the acceptability rating of the meal when it was consumed for the first time. The results reinforce the importance of liking in food choice and food intake/choice behavior. However, the magnitude of the correlation coefficients between acceptability ratings and food intake suggest that environmental factors also have an important role in determining intake and choic

Public health nutrition communication in the Netherlands: From information provision to behavior change

Public healthnutrition is concerned with the promotion and maintenance of good health through nutrition and the prevention of nutrition-related illness in humans. Nutrition communication plays an important role in the dissemination of credible and practical dietary advice and promoting healthful dietary behaviors. The purpose of this chapter is to provide insight in the changes in public health nutrition communication, by addressing the history, key themes, concepts, and approaches of nutrition communication in the Netherlands. The chapter concludes with a broader view of the challenges of public health nutrition communication and presents potential future directions for this field

A comparison between liking ratings obtained under laboratory and field conditions: the role of choice

The relationship between laboratory and field data was investigated for nine different groupings of 5¿7 foods: two main dish groupings, four snack item groupings, and three specific meals. Liking ratings on the nine-point hedonic scale were obtained in an US Army field study and for the same foods in a sensory laboratory. In a subsequent choice simulation laboratory with two food groupings, we offered subjects some choice (three out of six or seven items) among to which foods they would evaluate. The results showed high correlations between lab and field ratings for the snack food groupings (0.58¿0.94), but low correlations for the main dishes (¿0.05¿0.26) and meal components (¿0.07¿0.41). Correlations between mean field and mean laboratory data improved when laboratory subjects were offered a choice of foods. The ability of laboratory ratings to predict acceptability of foods consumed under realistic conditions appears to depend on the type of food, and may be better for foods used as snacks than for main dishes. Laboratory conditions in which subjects had some degree of choice among foods improved the relationship with the field data. It is important to pay more attention to experimental variables that may improve the validity of sensory laboratory test