In a random sample of the German-speaking population of Switzerland (N = 1388, 730 women), the technique of spontaneous associations was used to examine the relationship between valence (positive, negative) and content of participants’ spontaneous associations with the term “eating” and dietary restraint, ambivalence toward eating, and health consciousness. Regression analysis revealed ambivalence to be the most important and food health consciousness the second most important predictor of restrained eating. Correspondence analysis of the content of the spontaneous associations revealed high-restrained eaters to have fewer associations with eating than unrestrained eaters. High-restrained eaters most often had negative associations with diet and positive associations with health. Unrestrained eaters mentioned a variety of positive associations, such as community, comfort and well-being, preparation of food, aesthetics, and various specific foods (e.g., starchy side dishes, and sweets). Results support the notion that the conflict between weight control and eating enjoyment is rather pronounced in high-restrained eaters, resulting in ambivalence toward eating, and the inhibition of associations with palatable foods. This was less pronounced, but still present, in medium-restrained eaters. In contrast, unrestrained eaters seemed to have a balanced and conflict-free relationship with eating. However, restrained eating also seemed to be driven by health considerations.
As food is easily accessible in Western countries, restrained eating may become an adaptive behavior strategy to limit weight gain (de Lauzon-Guillain et al., 2006). Dietary restraint is the intentional restriction of energy intake for the purpose of weight loss or weight control (Burger & Stice, 2011). However, most restrained eaters are not able to successfully reduce their weight or maintain their weight loss over long time periods (Mann & Ward, 2007). Researchers (Herman and Polivy, 1984 and Stroebe et al., 2008) suggest that restrained eaters seem to be susceptible to psychological distress, such as feelings of conflict, ambivalence toward eating, and high levels of cognitive effort to control eating. The conflict model of eating suggests that the eating behavior of restrained eaters may be dominated by a conflict between the goal of weight control and eating enjoyment (Stroebe et al., 2008). Restrained eaters try to control and restrict intake of palatable foods, but at the same time, palatable foods have a positive effect (Fedoroff, Polivy, & Herman, 1997). As soon as the goal of enjoying palatable food is activated in restrained eaters, the conflicting goal of weight control is inhibited (Stroebe et al., 2008). This mechanism is assumed to underlie the self-regulatory failure of restrained eaters in environments where attractive food is easily available (Papies et al., 2009 and Stroebe et al., 2008). According to this goal-conflict model, the conflict between enjoying palatable food and controlling weight arises due to the more pronounced positive attitude and affective reaction toward palatable food of restrained eaters compared to unrestrained eaters; however, previous research has produced inconsistent results (for an overview, see Hofmann, van Koningsbruggen, Stroebe, Ramanathan, & Aarts, 2010). Therefore, in the present study we use the spontaneous word-association technique (Szalay & Deese, 1978) to examine the question of whether restrained and unrestrained eaters differ in their affective and intuitive responses toward eating palatable food and eating in general.
