See the cake and have it too? Investigating the effect of watching a TV cooking show on unhealthy food choices

• Published in: Physiology & behavior Vol. 236; p. 113409
• Main Authors: Alblas, Monique C., Mollen, Saar, Fransen, Marieke L., van den Putte, Bas
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01-07-2021
• Subjects: Eating behavior; Eating restraint; Food cues; Media effects; Self-regulation; Television; Food cues; Television; Eating restraint; Media effects; Eating behavior; Self-regulation
• ISSN: 0031-9384; 1873-507X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2021.113409

•No evidence for unsuccessful dieters’ reactivity to food-related TV content.•Lower perceived self-regulation is associated with more unhealthy food choices.•Previous findings on isolated food cues cannot be simply extended to media content.
This study tested whether exposure to food-related (vs. non-food related) TV content would increase unhealthy food choices in unsuccessful restrained eaters (i.e., chronic dieters with low perceived self-regulatory success; PSRS), decrease unhealthy food choices in successful restrained eaters (i.e., chronic dieters with high PSRS), and would not affect food choices in unrestrained eaters (i.e., non-dieters). As such, we attempted to (1) explain previous mixed findings on behavioral effects of exposure to food-related TV content, and (2) generalize previous findings on successful and unsuccessful restrained and unrestrained eaters’ differential reactivity to isolated food cues (e.g., food words) to food cues embedded in TV content. In a one-factorial between-subjects experiment, participants viewed a cooking segment in which high-calorie cakes were prepared (n = 50) or a non-food segment (n = 62) of a TV show. The percentage of unhealthy (vs. healthy) food choices in a computerized choice task served as dependent variable. Eating restraint and PSRS were measured afterwards. In contrast to the hypothesis, no three-way interaction between TV content, eating restraint, and PSRS on the percentage of unhealthy food choices was found. However, it was found that overall, people with lower levels of PSRS made a higher percentage of unhealthy food choices compared to people with higher levels of PSRS. Contrasting findings from previous research using isolated food cues, this study showed no evidence of unsuccessful restrained eaters’ heightened susceptibility to food cues in TV content, possibly explained by a lower salience of or attention to food cues.