By Christian Jarrett

When you’re in the coffee shop and you watch your hand pick up the muffin and place it on your tray, how much of this was down to the situation, and how much to do with your (lack of) willpower or your long-term intentions? A new study in the British Journal of Health Psychology compared these influences and found that momentary cues, such as seeing someone else snacking, were more strongly associated with how much people snacked than their own baseline psychological traits and intentions.

Continue reading “Whether you snack or not is more about the presence of temptation than your willpower” →

Health experts say we aren’t eating enough fruit. Perhaps psychology can help. Try this. Picture yourself eating a portion of fruit tomorrow – an apple, say, or a couple of plums. Take your time. Focus on the colours, the consistency, the flavour. Visualise where you are at the time, and what you are doing.

Do you think this simple imagery task will have increased the likelihood you will eat fruit tomorrow? A new study led by Catherine Adams attempted to find out. Over two hundred volunteers were split into three groups. One performed the fruit imagery task, another group did the same thing but for a biscuit bar of their choice (examples they were given included flapjacks, Kellogg’s Elevenses and Jaffa Cake bars), and a final group did not perform an imagery task.

Straight after, the participants answered questions about their food preferences, future consumption intentions, and they were offered a reward from a basket of fruits and biscuit bars. Two days later they were also asked by email whether they had any eaten fruit or a biscuit bar the day before (35 per cent of them answered this).

Once the researchers controlled for background factors (such as the possibility there were more fruit lovers in one condition or the other), they found that the fruit imagery task made no difference to participants’ intentions to eat fruit, no difference to their choice of fruit as a reward, nor their consumption of fruit the next day, as compared with the control group who didn’t perform the imagery. For the biscuit bar group, the imagery task increased their intentions to eat biscuit bars in the future, but didn’t actually alter their consumption (as compared against the no-imagery control group).

“These effects suggest different effects for different visualised behaviours,” the researchers said. “Further investigation is needed before recommending visualisation for increasing fruit consumption.”

As the researchers’ acknowledged, there are some issues with the study that mean caution is needed in interpreting the results. For instance, just one brief imagery session may well be inadequate. Also, other research suggests imagery works best when combined with other strategies, such as “if-then” implementation plans (e.g. If I am hungry, then I will snack on some fruit). The response rate to the follow-up email was also disappointing, and bear in mind that participants may have felt the food they chose immediately after the imagery was a form of reward, and therefore this behaviour may not reflect their usual eating choices. These issues show how difficult health behaviour research can be.

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Adams C, Rennie L, Uskul AK, and Appleton KM (2013). Visualising future behaviour: Effects for snacking on biscuit bars, but no effects for snacking on fruit. Journal of health psychology PMID: 24217063

–Further reading–
The Digest guide to willpower
Less is more when it comes to beating bad habits
If-then plans help protect us from the ‘to hell with it’ effect
The mindbus technique for resisting chocolate – should we climb aboard?

Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.

People who self-identify as dieters are an unhappy bunch on the whole. They usually score high on measures of depression and anxiety and low on self-esteem. A new study provides a clue as to why. Jessie de Witt Huberts and her colleagues tested three groups of female students and found the “restrained eaters” (they reported dieting more often and being conscious of their food intake) ate just as much as other students. They also experienced a lot more guilt, especially in relation to eating. In essence, these are people who seem to constantly set themselves up for failure, while also robbing themselves of the pleasures of eating. “Despite their good intentions,” the researchers said, “restraint eaters seem to gain nothing and lose twice.”

The research took place across three studies, all following a similar procedure. Dozens of female undergrads were invited to a lab to take part in what they thought was a food-tasting session for a supermarket chain. They were left alone for ten minutes to sample high and low calorie food, like chips and apple slices. Then they were asked questions about their emotions, including their guilt, and about their attitudes towards food, including how much they diet and how often they worry about what they’re eating.

Checking the food afterwards, the researchers found that the restrained eaters – those who dieted often and who fretted about their consumption – had eaten just as much as the other participants, including just as much high-calorie food. But crucially, they felt more guilty afterwards, especially in relation to their recent indulgence.

This study doesn’t prove that being a restrained eater causes increased guilt. It’s possible there’s one or more other factors that cause a person to watch what they eat and to experience more guilt. One could also argue that the set-up was a little unfair on the restrained eaters – they’d been asked to taste the food, after all; perhaps they do exert more control over their intake in everyday life.

Nonetheless, the results are certainly intriguing, and help explain why restrained eaters tend to experience psychological problems and why they tend to develop problematic eating habits. In effect, it appears these people are locked into a vicious circle. Guilt after over-eating likely encourages them to renew their promises to eat less. And when they fail again to reduce their eating, yet more guilt ensues, this time more intense than before. Given that “45 per cent of young girls currently report dieting”, the researchers said it’s imperative that we learn more about why so-called restrained eaters experience such negative outcomes.

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de Witt Huberts, J., Evers, C., and de Ridder, D. (2012). Double trouble: restrained eaters do not eat less and feel worse. Psychology and Health, 1-15 DOI: 10.1080/08870446.2012.751106

Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.