Influence of recalling recent eating episodes on healthy eating: a randomised experiment

Abstract

Recall of recent eating episodes is a versatile approach to test influences on amount eaten of specific food. The present experiment explored if reminding current food intake prompts awareness for eating more healthy food. In a randomised between-subjects experiment, 60 healthy young females were offered fruit at breakfast time, which they could eat ad libitum after recalling either eating (n = 31) or non-eating (n = 29) episodes of the day before. Participants in the eating recall condition on average did not eat a larger amount of fruit than participants in the non-eating recall condition (203 ± 62 g vs 209 ± 69, d = 0.11, t = −0.42, P = 0.68, BF10 = 0.28). So no evidence was found for a stimulatory effect on amount eaten of healthy food from reminding recent food intake. This null result is discussed and guidelines for future research are presented addressing further aspects of memories of eating episodes possibly influencing healthy food ingestion.