Learned Overeating: Applying Principles of Pavlovian Conditioning to Explain and Treat Overeating

This review provides an overview of recent findings relating to the role of Pavlovian conditioning in food cue reactivity, including its application to overeating and weight loss interventions.

Both in the laboratory and in real life, cue-elicited appetitive reactivity (e.g., eating desires) can be easily learned, but (long-term) extinction is more difficult. New findings suggest impaired appetitive learning in obesity, which might be causally related to overeating. The clinical analogue of extinction-cue exposure therapy-effectively reduces cue-elicited cravings and overeating. While its working mechanisms are still unclear, some studies suggest that reducing overeating expectancies is important.

Pavlovian learning theory provides a still undervalued theoretical framework of how cravings and overeating can be learned and how they might be effectively tackled. Future studies should aim to elucidate inter-individual differences in Pavlovian conditioning, study ways to strengthen (long-term) extinction, and investigate the working mechanisms of cue exposure therapy.