Implicitly assessed attitudes toward body shape and food: the moderating roles of dietary restraint and disinhibition

BACKGROUND: Attitudes toward body shape and food play a role in the development and maintenance of dysfunctional eating behaviors. Nevertheless, they are rarely investigated together. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the interrelationships between implicitly assessed attitudes toward body shape and food and to investigate the moderating effect on these associations of interindividual differences in problematic and nonproblematic eating behaviors (i.e., flexible versus rigid cognitive control dimension of restraint, disinhibition). METHODS: One hundred and twenty-one young women from the community completed two adapted versions of the Affect Misattribution Procedure to implicitly assess attitudes toward body shape (i.e., thin and overweight bodies) and food (i.e., “permitted” and “forbidden” foods), as well as the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire to evaluate restraint and disinhibition. RESULTS: The results revealed that an implicit preference for thinness was positively associated with a positive attitude toward permitted (i.e., low-calorie) foods. This congruence between implicitly assessed attitudes toward body shape and food was significant at average and high levels of flexible control (i.e., functional component of eating). Moreover, an implicit preference for thinness was also positively associated with a positive attitude toward forbidden (i.e., high-calorie) foods. This discordance between implicitly assessed attitudes was significant at average and high levels of rigid control and disinhibition (i.e., dysfunctional components of eating). CONCLUSIONS: These findings shed new light on the influence of congruent or discordant implicitly assessed attitudes toward body shape and food on normal and problematic eating behaviors; clinical implications are discussed. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40337-015-0085-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.