Paper Title
The Self-Regulation of Eating : Theoretical and Practical Problems
Keywords
- Self-Regulation
- Eating Behavior
- Weight Loss
- Diet Strategies
- Dietary Restraint
- Self-Control
- Hunger
- Satiety
- External Factors
- Social Influences
- Psychological Processes
- Overeating
- Diet Failure
- Intoxicants
- Calorie Allowance
- Eating Control
- Behavioral Disinhibition
Publication Info
Volume: Chapter 25 | Pages: 493-509
Published On
March, 2004
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Abstract
The regulation of eating is usually achieved by the operation of internal factors (e.g., hunger and satiety) and external factors (e.g., palatability). Self-regulation of eating refers to deliberate attempts to impose self-control on eating, often in defiance of normal regulatory influences, and usually with the goal of achieving or maintaining weight loss. Each weight-loss diet involves a self-regulatory strategy, and each strategy involves potential problems (e.g., the typical diurnal calorie-allowance diet allows dieters to rededicate themselves to the diet at the beginning of each new day but appears to promote unregulated eating for the remainder of a given day if the diet is broken). We explore the role of social influences in the control of eating; such influences are often at odds with diet goals. We explore how diets fail, both in terms of the sorts of situations (e.g., forced preloads, distress, intoxicants) that disinhibit inhibited or restrained eating and in terms of the presumptive psychological processes that mediate the effect of these situations on the disruption of dietary restraint. We examine various general models of self-regulation (and self-regulation failure) and how they may be applied to the specific case of eating and overeating. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
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