Implicit and explicit attitudes toward high-fat foods in obesity.

Abstract

This study examined implicit and explicit attitudes toward high-fat foods in obese ( n 30) and normal-weight controls (n 31). The Implicit Association Test (A. G. Greenwald, D. E. McGee, & J. L. K. Schwartz, 1998) was used to measure the differential association of the 2 target categories— high-fat vs. low-fat food words—with an attribute dimension (positive vs. negative). Results suggest that obese people are characterized by a significantly stronger implicit negative attitude toward high-fat foods than are normal-weight controls. This implicit negative attitude is contradictory to their preferences and behavior: Several studies indicate that obese people prefer and consume high-fat foods. Apparently, obese people like the taste of high-fat foods but not the fat content itself, not only on the explicit but also on the implicit level. One of the main questions in obesity research is how people become obese. Various food studies have shown that obesity is more strongly related to the percentage of fat in a diet than to total energetic intake: Obese people’s diets contain considerably more fat than the diets of normal-weight people (e.g., Capaldi, 1996; Drewnowski, 1996). The higher fat intake of obese people may be related to their larger preference for high-fat foods: Several studies found that obese people’s preference for foods was determined more by fat content than by carbohydrate or sucrose content. Moreover, they showed a larger preference for high-fat foods than did normal-weight controls (e.g., Capaldi, 1996; Drewnowski, 1991; Drewnowski, Brunzell, Sande, Iverius, & Greenwood, 1985; Drewnowski & Greenwood, 1983; Drewnowski, Kurth, HoldenWiltse, & Saari, 1992; Reed, Bachmanov, Beauchamp, Tordoff, & Price, 1997). Taste preferences might be considered evaluative categorizations. Evaluative categorizations such as positive–negative can be fast, preconscious, and automatic (e.g., Fazio, Sanbonmatsu, Powell, & Kardes, 1986; Hermans & Eelen, 1997). Taste preferences can be seen, therefore, as a special kind of automatic evaluative categorization, that is, in terms of palatable and unpalatable. Conceptualizing taste preferences as automatic evaluative categorizations leads to the prediction that the obese will not only show an explicit behavioral response to high-fat foods but also a fast, preconscious, and automatic preference for these foods. In this study, we examined the role of preconscious affective processes in the preference for high-fat foods. In particular, we tested whether obese people show a larger preconscious, automatic, positive response when presented with high-fat food words than do normal-weight controls. If obese participants show an implicit preference for high-fat foods, their preference for high-fat foods might not be changed easily.