Ecological momentary assessment of temptation and lapse in dieting

An Ecological Momentary Assessment of Lapse Occurrences in Dieters

“…in which you felt you had come close to the brink of breaking your diet", and lapses were defined as ''an incident where you felt that you broke your diet (e.g., overate, ate a forbidden food, etc.)'' [6]. Participants were instructed to fill out the questionnaire on the phone as soon as possible or at least within 15 minutes of being tempted or having lapsed.…”

“…On experiencing a dietary temptation, participants were firstly required to indicate whether they lapsed by selecting Yes or No. Participants then responded to a series of 15 questions which tapped eight predictor variables (Table 1) based on previous weight loss and self-control research [6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. The questions examined the perceived strength of dietary temptation (e.g., "How strong was this dietary temptation?…”

“…Such data can underestimate the strength or frequency of dietary lapse (i.e., an incident where one felt that they had broken their diet (e.g., overate, ate an unhealthy food, etc. [6]) as such characteristics are often subject to recall bias and inaccuracies [9]. The small number of studies investigating how dietary temptations operate outside laboratory conditions have sought to overcome the problems associated with retrospective recall by employing "real time" methods, such as ecological momentary assessment (EMA).…”

“…EMA studies [6,10] have highlighted the importance of examining a number of daily intrapersonal (e.g. perceived strength of temptations), situational (e.g., presence of others), and psychological (e.g.…”

“…Moreover, running low on energy (i.e. being in a state of hunger) may have an impact on one's ability to resist dietary temptation [6], due to depletion effects caused by drops in blood glucose levels [13]. These three intrapersonal factors (depletion, stress, and hunger) are likely to shape individuals' perceived dietary temptation strength, which has been shown to predict lapse occurrence [8].…”