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Automatic and Controlled Processing: Implications for Eating Behavior

It is a widely held view that humans have control over their food choices and consumption. However, research also suggests that eating behavior is often triggered by contextual cues and guided by automaticities and habits. Interestingly, the dichotomy between automatic and controlled processing has...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Fürtjes, Sophia, King, Joseph A., Goeke, Caspar, Seidel, Maria, Goschke, Thomas, Horstmann, Annette, Ehrlich, Stefan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7230536/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32326623
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu12041097
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author Fürtjes, Sophia
King, Joseph A.
Goeke, Caspar
Seidel, Maria
Goschke, Thomas
Horstmann, Annette
Ehrlich, Stefan
author_facet Fürtjes, Sophia
King, Joseph A.
Goeke, Caspar
Seidel, Maria
Goschke, Thomas
Horstmann, Annette
Ehrlich, Stefan
author_sort Fürtjes, Sophia
collection PubMed
description It is a widely held view that humans have control over their food choices and consumption. However, research also suggests that eating behavior is often triggered by contextual cues and guided by automaticities and habits. Interestingly, the dichotomy between automatic and controlled processing has recently been challenged, suggesting that they may be intertwined. In a large female sample (n = 567), we investigated the hypothesis that task-based and self-reported measures of automatic and controlled processing would interact and impact self-reported eating behavior. Results analyzed via structural equation modeling suggest that automatic, but not controlled processing, during a modified flanker task, including a context-specific proportion congruent (CSPC) manipulation, was inversely associated with self-reported self-control. The influence of self-control on unhealthy eating behavior (i.e., uncontrolled and emotional eating, heightened consumption of fat and sugar) was only indirect via habitual behavior, which itself had a strong direct impact. Unhealthy eating was further associated with real-life outcomes (e.g., body mass index (BMI)). Our findings suggest that eating behavior may indeed be guided primarily by automaticities and habits, whereas self-control might facilitate this association. Having self-control over eating might therefore be most effective by avoiding contextual cues eliciting undesired automatic behavior and establishing habits that serve long-term goals.
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spelling pubmed-72305362020-05-22 Automatic and Controlled Processing: Implications for Eating Behavior Fürtjes, Sophia King, Joseph A. Goeke, Caspar Seidel, Maria Goschke, Thomas Horstmann, Annette Ehrlich, Stefan Nutrients Article It is a widely held view that humans have control over their food choices and consumption. However, research also suggests that eating behavior is often triggered by contextual cues and guided by automaticities and habits. Interestingly, the dichotomy between automatic and controlled processing has recently been challenged, suggesting that they may be intertwined. In a large female sample (n = 567), we investigated the hypothesis that task-based and self-reported measures of automatic and controlled processing would interact and impact self-reported eating behavior. Results analyzed via structural equation modeling suggest that automatic, but not controlled processing, during a modified flanker task, including a context-specific proportion congruent (CSPC) manipulation, was inversely associated with self-reported self-control. The influence of self-control on unhealthy eating behavior (i.e., uncontrolled and emotional eating, heightened consumption of fat and sugar) was only indirect via habitual behavior, which itself had a strong direct impact. Unhealthy eating was further associated with real-life outcomes (e.g., body mass index (BMI)). Our findings suggest that eating behavior may indeed be guided primarily by automaticities and habits, whereas self-control might facilitate this association. Having self-control over eating might therefore be most effective by avoiding contextual cues eliciting undesired automatic behavior and establishing habits that serve long-term goals. MDPI 2020-04-15 /pmc/articles/PMC7230536/ /pubmed/32326623 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu12041097 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Fürtjes, Sophia
King, Joseph A.
Goeke, Caspar
Seidel, Maria
Goschke, Thomas
Horstmann, Annette
Ehrlich, Stefan
Automatic and Controlled Processing: Implications for Eating Behavior
title Automatic and Controlled Processing: Implications for Eating Behavior
title_full Automatic and Controlled Processing: Implications for Eating Behavior
title_fullStr Automatic and Controlled Processing: Implications for Eating Behavior
title_full_unstemmed Automatic and Controlled Processing: Implications for Eating Behavior
title_short Automatic and Controlled Processing: Implications for Eating Behavior
title_sort automatic and controlled processing: implications for eating behavior
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7230536/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32326623
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu12041097
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