Attentional avoidance of high-fat food in unsuccessful dieters.
Using the exogenous cueing task, this study examined whether restrained and disinhibited eaters differ in their orientation of attention towards and their difficulty to disengage from high versus low-fat food pictures in a relatively short (500 ms) and a long presentation format (1500 ms). Overall, participants in the 500 ms condition showed a tendency to direct attention away from high-fat food pictures compared to neutral pictures. No differential pattern was evident for the 1500 ms condition. Correlational analysis revealed that reduced engagement with high-fat food was particularly pronounced for disinhibited eaters. Although in the short term this seems an adaptive strategy, it may eventually become counterproductive, as it could hinder habituation and learning to cope with seductive characteristics of high-fat food.
Veenstra
Esther M
EM
Department of Clinical Psychology, Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences, University of Groningen, Grote Kruisstraat 2-1, 9712 TS Groningen, The Netherlands. e.m.veenstra@rug.nl
de Jong
Peter J
PJ
Koster
Ernst H W
EH
Roefs
Anne
A
D001288:Attention; D001362:Avoidance Learning; D003463:Cues; D004041:Dietary Fats; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005518:Food Preferences / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult
D004041:Dietary Fats