Staying on and getting back on the wagon: age-related improvement in self-regulation during a low-calorie diet.
In the present study, we investigated whether self-regulation improves across adulthood, especially regarding the mastery of setbacks and failure in an important health-related behavior, namely, staying on a low-calorie diet when overweight. Overweight women (N = 126; 19-77 years of age, M = 47.2) filled out weekly questionnaires on the outcomes of behavioral, emotional, and cognitive self-regulation during a dieting program; outcomes included deviations from the diet, weight loss, affect, and rumination. Confirming hypotheses, multilevel analyses revealed that-even after controlling for prior dieting attempts-age was associated with better self-reported self-regulation (i.e., fewer deviations from the diet, lower disinhibition and rumination after failure, and higher affective well-being) but not with more weight loss. Results suggest that self-regulation improves with age and shows positive effects on subjective indicators of successfully coping with setbacks but does not directly influence the target-outcome weight loss.
Hennecke
Marie
M
Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Binzmuehlestrasse 14/11, Zurich, Switzerland. m.hennecke@psychologie.uzh.ch
Freund
Alexandra M
AM
D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology; D015992:Body Mass Index; D004038:Diet, Reducing / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009765:Obesity / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D012927:Social Control, Informal; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D055815:Young Adult