Dietary Restraint and the Selective Processing of Forbidden and Nonforbidden Food Words

Abstract

The present study examined whether restrained eaters relative to nonrestrained eaters show greater preoccupation with forbidden foods than nonforbidden foods using a modified Stroop color-naming task. Fourteen restrained eaters and 14 nonrestrained eaters completed a computerized Stroop task, involving naming the ink color of forbidden food words, nonforbidden food words, and animal control words. Subjects also rated all food words on perceived “forbiddenness” (degree to which subjects were avoiding each food in efforts to control body weight). As hypothesized, Stroop interference for both types of food words was greater for restrained eaters than nonrestrained eaters. Contrary to hypothesis, restrained eaters did not demonstrate greater interference when color naming forbidden versus nonforbidden food words. However, restrained eaters rated only forbidden foods as more highly forbidden than nonrestrained eaters. The finding that dietary restraint was associated with the selective processing of both forbidden and nonforbidden food words may suggest that restrained eaters are more preoccupied with both types of foods than nonrestrained eaters. Alternatively, the Stroop may tap differences in the personal relevance of food cues between restrained eaters and nonrestrained eaters occurring early in the information processing chain, prior to restrained eaters' later classification of food words as bad versus good (forbidden vs. nonforbidden).