Eat to Be Fit or Fit to Eat ? Restrained Eaters’ Food Consumption in Response to Fitness Cues

1. Eat to Be Fit or Fit to Eat?Restrained Eaters’ FoodConsumption in Response to Fitness Cues Jörg Königstorfer Hans Baumgartner

2. Healthy food decision making maintaining or lowering their body weight is an important goal for 72% of U.S. consumers (Serdulaet al. 1999); focus of prior research has been on the effects of nutrition-related cues on consumption volumes (e.g., Bublitz et al. 2010; Chandon and Wansink 2010) and the overconsumption of tempting but unhealthy food products (e.g., Raghunathan et al. 2006), esp. by dieters; we’re interested in how fitness cues (which deal with physical activity and energy expenditure rather than dieting and energy intake) influence consumption behavior;

3. Healthy food decision making (cont’d) fitness cues are common in food marketing; we investigate the effect of fitness cues on restrained eaters’ food consumption and demonstrate that the direction of the effect depends on the perception of the food category; we also examine the process through which the effect occurs;

4. Fitness cues • two kinds of fitness cues: • integral fitness cues (ingredients, product name, packaging); • incidental fitness cues; • two recent studies: • after reading about physical activity, consumers helped themselves to more snack food (Werle et al. 2011); • priming consumers with health-related concepts increased consumption of low-fat potato chips (Geyskens et al. 2007);

5. Dietary restraint • the cognitive control of eating; • restrained eaters are consumers who constantly worry about their weight and are chronically engaged in dieting efforts in order to achieve or maintain a desirable body weight; • they are more sensitive to external cues of eating than internal, biophysiological feelings of hunger and satiety; • individual-difference measures: • Restraint Scale – concern with dieting and weight fluctuation (Herman and Polivy 1975); • Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (van Strien et al. 1986);

6. Dietary restraint and food consumption promoting cognitive control over eating can be an effective strategy for weight management (Johnson et al. 2012); however, loss of self-control is common, esp. following dietary lapses and during negative affective states; Heatherton et al. (1988, p. 20) suggest that research should “focus on the more complex question of precisely when, why and how disinhibition occurs in dieters”; we propose that fitness cues can have an inhibitory or disinhibitory effect on restrained eaters’ food consumption depending on whether the product category is perceived as dietary forbidden or dietary permitted;

7. Dietary forbidden or permitted foods vs. • consumers use simple heuristics about the compatibility of certain food categories with their goals to manage their eating behavior (Knight and Boland 1989): • Dietary forbidden foods • Dietary permitted foods • these heuristics used are often inconsistent with the objectively measured calorie content of foods (Oakes 2005; Irmak et al. 2011); • the salience of fitness cues in combination with the perception of the food will determine restrained eaters’ consumption behavior;

8. Avoidance of dietary forbidden food in response to fitness cues when restrained eaters encounter a temptation, they face a goal conflict (Ströbe et al. 2008), and the perception of the category as dietary forbidden may not be sufficient to shield the weight control goal from the eating enjoyment goal; however, when the concept of fitness is made salient, the health goal is reinforced and the eating enjoyment goal is inhibited, leading to a negative relationship between dietary restraint and the consumption of dietary forbidden foods; prediction is consistent with prior evidence that diet cues can reinstate a weight control goal (e.g., Papies et al. 2008);

9. Approach of dietary permitted food in response to fitness cues the perceived compatibility of dietary permitted foods with long-term health goals may liberate restrained eaters from having to control their eating behavior and may license them to succumb to the eating enjoyment goal, leading to a positive relationship between dietary restraint and the consumption of dietary permitted foods; this is consistent with the effects of incidental priming with health- and fitness-related concepts (e.g., Geyskens et al. 2007), and with the effects observed by Irmak et al. (2011);

10. Overall framework • Integral DietaryRestrainedEating Food Consumption Volume Fitness Cue Food Category Perception asDietaryForbidden or Permitted • Incidental

11. Mechanisms underlying the effects of fitness cues on food consumption two potential mechanisms (Geyskens et al. 2007): • biased product perception • restrained eaters may magnify the perceived (in)appropriate-ness of food when the concept of fitness is salient; • restrained eaters under- or over-estimate the number of calories contained in a food when the concept of fitness is salient (similar to the counteractive construal strategy proposed by Zhang et al. 2010); • biased self-perception: references to fitness lead restrained eaters to see them-selves as closer to their desired fitness and body weight goals;

12. Prestudy How would you classify the food? (1=dietary forbidden and 7=dietary permitted) If this food were eaten regularly, it would lead to … (1=weight gain, 7=weight loss)

13. S T U D I E S 1A and 1B Incidental Fitness Cues and the Consumption of Dietary Forbidden and Dietary Permitted Food

14. Study 1A: Dietary forbidden food • Two “unrelated” studies • (language test, watch a movie at which a snack was available) • Supraliminal prime manipulation • Scrambled sentence task (with vs. without fitness words) [sporty, fit, active, etc.] • Measures • Potato chips consumption (pre vs. post) • Dietary Restraint Scale (revised, α = .78; Herman & Polivy 1980) • Controls: gender, BMI, hours since last meal, perceived tastiness

15. H1a  Study 1A Moderated Regression Analysis Results Neutral prime Fitness prime Consumption of potato chips (kcal) n.s. n.s. R2 = .15, tastiness, hunger, and BMI n.s., (male) gender * s. n = 132 –1 SD 0 +1 SD Dietaryrestrained eating(mean-centered)

16. Study 1B: Dietary permitted food • Two “unrelated” studies • (language test, assess consumers’ opinions about a new co-branded yogurt and granola mix) • Supraliminal prime • Scrambled sentence task (with vs. without fitness words) • Measures • yogurt and granola consumption (pre vs. post) • Dietary Restraint Scale (revised, α = .82; Herman & Polivy 1980) • Controls: gender, BMI, hours since last meal, perceived tastiness

17. H1b  Study 1B Moderated Regression Analysis Results Neutral prime Fitness prime s. n.s. Consumption of yogurt and granola (kcal) n.s. R2 = .22, hunger and BMI n.s., tastiness and (male) gender * n = 166 –1 SD 0 +1 SD Dietaryrestrained eating(mean-centered)

18. Summary of Studies 1A and 1B • Incidental fitness cues lead dietary restrained eaters to • consume less dietary-forbidden food = inhibition (goal adherence) • consume more dietary-permitted food = disinhibition (goal violation) • Unknown: • Do integral fitness cues (on the packaging) also lead to disinhibition for dietary permitted foods? • How can disinhibition be explained – via biased product perception or biased self-perception?

19. S T U D Y 2 Integral Fitness Cues and Consumption of Dietary Permitted Food

20. Study 2 • One-factor design • assess consumers’ opinions about a new trail mix (with vs. without integral fitness cues); • Measures • Trail mix consumption (pre vs. post) • Dietary Restraint (DEBQ, α = .91; van Strien et al. 1986) • Controls: gender, BMI, hours since last meal, perceived tastiness

21. H2  Study 2 Moderated Regression Analysis Results Trail Mix Fitness Trail Mix s. Consumption of trail mix (kcal) n.s. n.s. R2 = .19, gender, hunger, and BMI n.s., tastiness * n = 162 –1 SD 0 +1 SD Dietaryrestrained eating(mean-centered)

22. S T U D Y 3 Mechanisms underlying the Effect of Integral Fitness Cues on Consumption for Dietary Permitted Foods

23. Study 3 • One-factor design • assess consumers’ opinions about a new trail mix (with vs. without integral fitness cues); Ps were asked to imagine eating the product and to evaluate the anticipated consumption experience; • Measures • Product-related perceptions: • Perception of the food as dietary- permitted or -forbidden • Calorie estimation (1 serving) • Person-related perceptions: • Closeness to desired fitness and weight • Dietary restraint and controls measured as before

24. H3  Study 3 Moderated Regression – Product Perception Dietary-permitted Trail Mix n.s. s. Fitness Trail Mix Product perception Gender and BMI n.s. Dietary-forbidden n = 104 –1 SD 0 +1 SD Dietaryrestrained eating(mean-centered)

25. H3  Study 3 Moderated Regression – Self-Perception Desired fitnessfully reached Trail Mix n.s. Fitness Trail Mix s. Perceived fulfillmentof fitness goals Gender and BMI n.s. Far away from desired fitness n = 104 –1 SD 0 +1 SD Dietaryrestrained eating(mean-centered)

26. H3  Study 3 Moderated Regression – Self-Perception Desired weightfully reached Trail Mix n.s. Fitness Trail Mix s. Perceived fulfillmentof body weight goals s. Gender and BMI n.s. Far away from desired weight n = 104 –1 SD 0 +1 SD Dietaryrestrained eating(mean-centered)

27. Summary of Studies • Contribution • Incidental and integral fitness cues (relating to energy expenditure) increase energy intake of dietary-permitted food in restrained eaters by 24–43% (at +1 SD) • Fitness cues make foods appear more dietary permitted; biases in self-perception can also explain this effect; • Public policy perspective • When cues (here: fitness) license the eating enjoyment goal, dietary-permitted foods are most likely to cause disinhibition • Fitness food from ‘safe’ yet calorie-dense categories may be more harmful than typical dietary-forbidden food (e.g., chips)

28. Integral fitness cues

29. Incidental fitness cues

30. Agreement with the statement that eating 3 slices of bacon [110 kcal] vs. 1 banana [110 kcal] would promote … (Oakes 2005): M = 4.32 M = 1.87   Extreme weight gain No weight gain