A problematic counter-regulation experiment: Implications for the link between dietary restraint and overeating

Abstract

The current study failed to find any evidence of laboratory counter‐regulation amongst restrained eaters given a preload, regardless of the measures of dietary restraint used to classify subjects, including dieting status on the day of the study. Furthermore, there was no evidence to suggest that high restrainers characteristically overeat or experience a sense of loss of control over eating in naturalistic settings. These findings indicate that the link between dietary restraint and overeating or bulimic episodes is, at most, a weak one. Future investigations must incorporate more detailed and sensitive measures of both restraint and overeating if analogue studies are to be useful for understanding the process involved in clinically significant episodes of overeating or binge eating. © 1993 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Life is uncertain, eat dessert first: Uncertainty causes controlled and unemotional eaters to consume more sweets

“…It was unrelated to eating behaviors in the present study. This is consistent with previous findings that self-reported cognitive restraint often does not predict either objective eating behavior (Stice et al, 2007(Stice et al, , 2010 or disinhibited eating (Dritschel, Cooper, & Charnock, 1993;Lowe & Kleifield, 1988;Morgan & Jeffrey, 1999;Ouwens et al, 2003;Van Strien et al, 2000). It is not surprising that this subscale did not predict eating in this study.…”

Life is uncertain, eat dessert first: Uncertainty causes controlled and unemotional eaters to consume more sweets

“…It was unrelated to eating behaviors in the present study. This is consistent with previous findings that self-reported cognitive restraint often does not predict either objective eating behavior (Stice et al, 2007(Stice et al, , 2010 or disinhibited eating (Dritschel, Cooper, & Charnock, 1993;Lowe & Kleifield, 1988;Morgan & Jeffrey, 1999;Ouwens et al, 2003;Van Strien et al, 2000). It is not surprising that this subscale did not predict eating in this study.…”

Ice-cream consumption, tendency toward overeating, and personality

“…Apart from the Restraint Scale (RS; Herman, Polivy, Pliner, Threlkeld, & Munic, 1978), they also used the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ; van Strien, Frijters, Bergers, & Defares, 1986) and the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ; Stunkard & Messick, 1985) to permit assessment of overeating (disinhibition) and restrained eating. There was no disinhibition effect, as the preload did not trigger overeating, which is in line with other studies (Wardle & Beales, 1987Jansen, Merckelbach, Oosterlaan, & van den Hout, 1988;Lowe & Kleifeld, 1988;Dritchel, Cooper, & Charnock, 1993;Westenhoefer, Broeckman, Münch, & Pudel, 1994). A further outcome was that tendency toward overeating was the most important variable for ice-cream consumption.…”

The influence of cognitive factors in the treatment of obesity: Lessons from the QUOVADIS study

“…This hypothesis was confirmed by findings from laboratory studies on normal-weight participants showing that those with high dietary restraint tend to overeat in response to a preload (Lowe & Levine, 2005;Polivy, 1996;Ruderman, 1986). However, this association has not been observed in all studies (Dritschel, Cooper, & Charnock, 1993;Lowe & Kleifield, 1988;Smith et al, 1998), and limited weight regain has been associated with an increase in dietary restraint in obese participants at both medium-(Westerterp-Plantenga, Kempen, & Saris, 1998) and long-term follow-up (Vogels & Westerterp-Plantenga, 2007). In line with other studies, the QUO-VADIS data confirm that baseline levels of dietary restraint are not associated with weight loss (Teixeira et al, 2005), but that increased dietary restraint during treatment is associated with greater weight loss at 12 months of treatment .…”

Life is uncertain, eat dessert first: Uncertainty causes controlled and unemotional eaters to consume more sweets

“…It was unrelated to eating behaviors in the present study. This is consistent with previous findings that self-reported cognitive restraint often does not predict either objective eating behavior (Stice et al, 2007(Stice et al, , 2010 or disinhibited eating (Dritschel, Cooper, & Charnock, 1993;Lowe & Kleifield, 1988;Morgan & Jeffrey, 1999;Ouwens et al, 2003;Van Strien et al, 2000). It is not surprising that this subscale did not predict eating in this study.…”

Ice-cream consumption, tendency toward overeating, and personality

“…Apart from the Restraint Scale (RS; Herman, Polivy, Pliner, Threlkeld, & Munic, 1978), they also used the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ; van Strien, Frijters, Bergers, & Defares, 1986) and the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ; Stunkard & Messick, 1985) to permit assessment of overeating (disinhibition) and restrained eating. There was no disinhibition effect, as the preload did not trigger overeating, which is in line with other studies (Wardle & Beales, 1987Jansen, Merckelbach, Oosterlaan, & van den Hout, 1988;Lowe & Kleifeld, 1988;Dritchel, Cooper, & Charnock, 1993;Westenhoefer, Broeckman, Münch, & Pudel, 1994). A further outcome was that tendency toward overeating was the most important variable for ice-cream consumption.…”

The influence of cognitive factors in the treatment of obesity: Lessons from the QUOVADIS study

“…This hypothesis was confirmed by findings from laboratory studies on normal-weight participants showing that those with high dietary restraint tend to overeat in response to a preload (Lowe & Levine, 2005;Polivy, 1996;Ruderman, 1986). However, this association has not been observed in all studies (Dritschel, Cooper, & Charnock, 1993;Lowe & Kleifield, 1988;Smith et al, 1998), and limited weight regain has been associated with an increase in dietary restraint in obese participants at both medium-(Westerterp-Plantenga, Kempen, & Saris, 1998) and long-term follow-up (Vogels & Westerterp-Plantenga, 2007). In line with other studies, the QUO-VADIS data confirm that baseline levels of dietary restraint are not associated with weight loss (Teixeira et al, 2005), but that increased dietary restraint during treatment is associated with greater weight loss at 12 months of treatment .…”

Life is uncertain, eat dessert first: Uncertainty causes controlled and unemotional eaters to consume more sweets

“…It was unrelated to eating behaviors in the present study. This is consistent with previous findings that self-reported cognitive restraint often does not predict either objective eating behavior (Stice et al, 2007(Stice et al, , 2010 or disinhibited eating (Dritschel, Cooper, & Charnock, 1993;Lowe & Kleifield, 1988;Morgan & Jeffrey, 1999;Ouwens et al, 2003;Van Strien et al, 2000). It is not surprising that this subscale did not predict eating in this study.…”

Ice-cream consumption, tendency toward overeating, and personality

“…Apart from the Restraint Scale (RS; Herman, Polivy, Pliner, Threlkeld, & Munic, 1978), they also used the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ; van Strien, Frijters, Bergers, & Defares, 1986) and the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ; Stunkard & Messick, 1985) to permit assessment of overeating (disinhibition) and restrained eating. There was no disinhibition effect, as the preload did not trigger overeating, which is in line with other studies (Wardle & Beales, 1987Jansen, Merckelbach, Oosterlaan, & van den Hout, 1988;Lowe & Kleifeld, 1988;Dritchel, Cooper, & Charnock, 1993;Westenhoefer, Broeckman, Münch, & Pudel, 1994). A further outcome was that tendency toward overeating was the most important variable for ice-cream consumption.…”

The influence of cognitive factors in the treatment of obesity: Lessons from the QUOVADIS study

“…This hypothesis was confirmed by findings from laboratory studies on normal-weight participants showing that those with high dietary restraint tend to overeat in response to a preload (Lowe & Levine, 2005;Polivy, 1996;Ruderman, 1986). However, this association has not been observed in all studies (Dritschel, Cooper, & Charnock, 1993;Lowe & Kleifield, 1988;Smith et al, 1998), and limited weight regain has been associated with an increase in dietary restraint in obese participants at both medium-(Westerterp-Plantenga, Kempen, & Saris, 1998) and long-term follow-up (Vogels & Westerterp-Plantenga, 2007). In line with other studies, the QUO-VADIS data confirm that baseline levels of dietary restraint are not associated with weight loss (Teixeira et al, 2005), but that increased dietary restraint during treatment is associated with greater weight loss at 12 months of treatment .…”