Research suggests 89% of UK
women have dieted at some point
in their lives. (Klesges et al., 1987)
Herman and Mack 1975 created the theory to explain
causes and consequence of food intake. They suggested
that attempting not to eat actually increases the chance
of overeating
Wardle and Beales 1988 randomly assigned 27 obese
women to either an exercise, diet or control group. At week
4 & 6 ppts were assessed before & after a preload was
consumed. At week 6, the assessment was done under
stressful conditions
It was found that women in the diet group
ate more than the other ppts in both
conditions
The Boundary
Model
Herman & Polivy 1984 created the model
which proposes boundaries for food intake.
These include a hunger boundary & satiety.
Dieters have another boundary in between
these two, called the diet boundary.
Dieters have a bigger gap between hunger and
satiety, whilst restrained eaters have self
imposed limits, however when those limits are
breached, they are more likely to eat to satiety
The Role of Denial
It has been found that trying
to suppress a thought can
actually make it even more
prominent. Wegner asked ppts
not to think about a white
bear, but ring a bell if they did.
Ppts that were told to not
think about the bear rang the
bell far more often than those
that weren't told whether to
think about it or not
Wegner called this 'the Theory
of Ironic Processes'
This therefore means that
when diets try to suppress
thoughts of food, they
actually end up worse off,
and fail their diets
Evaluation
Restraint
Theory
Implications for obesity
treatment
Ogden suggests
that whilst
research implies
that restraint leads
to overeating, the
majority of
treatments for
obese patients
involve restraint.
This could lead to a
vicious cycle of
failing diets, which
could lead the
patients upset or
depressed at their
lack of success
dieting
Limited relevance
Ogden suggests that
despite dieters, bulimics &
some anorexics report
episodes of overeating, the
theory can't explain the
behaviour of anorexics that
restrict their diet greatly
The theory of ironic
processes of mental control
Soetens et al supports the theory.
Ppts were divided into restrained &
unrestrained eaters. Restrained
group was then divided into high &
low disinhibition
Disinhibited restrained group used more thought suppression
than other ppts, & also showed a rebound effect afterwards.
This shows that restrained eaters that overeat try to suppress
thoughts about food, but end up thinking about it more often
Wegner admits the
ironic effects
observed weren't
huge
IDA
Cultural Bias
Some cultural groups find it harder to diet
successfully due to a natural inclination to
obesity. Park et al. found Asian adults were
more prone to obesity than Europeans
Misra et al also found that Asian children
& teenagers had a greater central fat
mass than their European counterparts
Free will vs Determinism
It has been found that there are some genetic
factors that could lead to a predisposition for
obesity. These include a gene that codes for
lipoprotein lipase, which helps store calories as fat
Kern et al. found that LPL levels in
previously obese people were far
higher in those that had never been
obese. This suggests why it may be
harder for people to keep weight that
they have lost off compared to
someone that has never been obese
Successful dieting
Redden gave 135 ppts 22 jelly beans each, one
at a time. One group saw generic info for each
jelly bean (e.g. bean number 7) whilst the other
group saw info about flavours. Ppts got bored
quicker with the generic info, so ate less