“I will fast … tomorrow”: Intentions to restrict eating and actual restriction in daily life and their person-level predictors
Open accessAbstract
Objective Dietary restraint is a common, yet controversial practice to tackle overweight. Yet, despite good intentions to reduce food intake, most restraint-based diets fail to produce long term weight loss. A better understanding of the naturalistic course of daily dieting intentions and their effectiveness in guiding subsequent eating behavior are therefore needed. Method In two studies, participants (n = 49 and n = 59) reported both their state intention to restrict eating on the next day, as well as their actual restriction on that day via smartphone-based evening reports of 12 and 10 days, respectively. Intention-behavior gap scores were calculated as differences between intention at t1 (e.g. evening intention Monday for restriction Tuesday) and restriction at t2 (evening report of actual restraint on Tuesday). Restriction-related trait questionnaires served as predictors of general intention or restriction level, whereas several trait-level disinhibiting eating style questionnaires served as predictors for intention-behavior gaps (difference scores). Results Daily intentions to restrict were rated higher than the daily actual restrictive behavior. Participants with higher scores on restriction-related questionnaires (restrained eating, dieting, lower intuitive eating) showed higher levels of daily state intention and restriction. Larger state intention-behavior gaps, by contrast, were seen in participants scoring high on trait-level disinhibiting eating styles (emotional eating, stress eating and food craving). Discussion The results point to potential risk factors of diet failure in everyday life: emotional, stress eating, and food craving are disinhibiting traits that seem to increase intention-behavior gaps. These findings can inform individualized weight-loss interventions: individuals with disinhibiting traits might need additional guidance to avoid potentially frustrating diet failures.
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Other factors besides interest (attention) intervene in explaining the use frequency of quality cues, similarly to the case of the intention-behavior gap for various food related behaviors.
“However, it should be considered that other factors besides interest (attention) intervene in explaining the use frequency of quality cues, similarly to the case of the intention–behavior gap for various food related behaviors [117,118].”
From Consumer Understanding of Food Quality, Healthiness, and Environmental Impact: A Cross-National Perspective (2019) · cites this paper as [117]
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- Authors
- Reichenberger, J., Smyth, J. M., Kuppens, P., & Blechert, J.
- Affiliations
- University of Salzburg (AT)
- Pennsylvania State University (US)
- KU Leuven (BE)
- Corresponding author
- Reichenberger, Julia
- Venue
- Appetite
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2019-09
- Volume
- 140
- Pages
- 10-18
- ISSN
- 0195-6663 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2941044194
- Cited by
- 26
- References
- 11
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 4.09
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- lirias.kuleuven.be
- Licence
- Locations
- Appetite (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Lirias (KU Leuven) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- European Commission (639445, HORIZON2020, ERC-StG-2014)
- Austrian Science Fund (I 02130‐B27, ERC-StG-2014 639445)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Eating Disorders and Behaviors
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Nutrition, Health and Food Behavior
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Behavioral Health and Interventions
- Keywords
- dietary restraint, intention-behavior gap, emotional eating, stress eating, food cravings, intuitive eating, weight loss
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Diet, Diet Surveys, Eating, Feeding Behavior, Female, Humans, Male, Obesity, Surveys and Questionnaires, Intention, Overweight, Young Adult
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