Psychological explanations for the success & failure of dieting

Psychological explanations for the success & failure of dieting

1. Restraint Theory

   • Try to restrain / restrict food intake
     • Chances are - end up overeating
   • Homeostasis - Hypothalamus (balances the body)
   • Physiological boundary for eating
   • AO2 - Implication for treatment of obesity

2. Boundary Model

   • Normal eater - level of hunger and satiety
     • Restrained eater - Has a satiety level and a hunger level
       • Hunger level more restricted, due to the diet boundary placed
         • Takes longer to get hungry
         • Takes more to make you feel satieted
         • Dieters use self - imposed cognitive diet boundary
       • Stretch the physiological boundary
   • AO2 - Wardle & Beales (1988)
     • 27 obese women in 3 conditions
     • Given taste test of milkshake (preload)
     • Either no pre - load /1 milkshake / 2 milkshakes
     • Q on restrained eating
     • Following pre - load - taste test of 3 tubs of icecream, told they could eat as much as they liked
     • Those who scored high on restrained eating Q ate more ice - cream if they had pre - load
     • Those who were'normal' eaters ate less ice - cream if they had pre- - load
     • Restrained eaters went over their cognitive diet boundary due to the high carb pre - load
     • Unrestrained eaters only eat until satisfied - felt fuller after the pre - load

3. Denial

   • Suppress thoughts of certain foods leads to wanted them more
   • Theory of ironic processes of mental control
     • Wegner et al (1987)
       • Ppts who were asked not to think of a white polar bear thought of it more then ppts allowed to think of the white polar bear

4. Detail (Successful diets)

   • Not salads again!
   • Think about the different parts of the food you are eating
     • I.e. Baby tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce etc, etc.
   • Redden (2008)
     • Jelly Beans