Objective: The current study examined the impact of dietary restraint and caloric preload on thought suppression in a sample of 64 college females classified as either restrained or unrestrained eaters.
Method: Participants engaged in a 60-min laboratory session. One half of the participants were preloaded with a high-calorie milkshake and all participants were randomly assigned to a food and eating-related thought suppression condition or a no suppression control condition. Food-related thoughts were assessed with a digital counter and verbal references to food were tracked with an audio recorder.
Results: Restrained participants instructed to suppress food-related thoughts demonstrated significantly more food and eating-related thoughts than unrestrained participants. Preloading was associated with an increase in the frequency of indirect mentions to food and eating.
Discussion: Although the hypothesized "rebound" effect did not occur for any study groups, these findings indicate that both restraint status and preloading impact food and eating-related thoughts.
Copyright 2005 by Wiley Periodicals, Inc