Dietary restraint anxiety and its relationship to human eating behavior

Ninety-five female university students completed Stunkard and Messick's (Journal of Research Psychosomatic Research, 29, 71-83, 1985) Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire, measuring three dimensions of human eating behavior: cognitive restraint, disinhibition, and hunger susceptibility. They were led through the visualization of a neutral or pleasant scene and a food scene, but were instructed that they would not be able to eat the food. Only hunger susceptibility was found to be significantly correlated with ratings of subjective anxiety (SUDS) and urge to eat in the not eating situation after any variability associated with the neutral scene was removed. That is, internal (hunger) and external (incentive) cues when linked to not eating are sources of anxiety. Treatment programmes for obesity might well include desensitization of these cues.