Self-control, food choices, and affective well-being in daily life: an experience sampling study

Food-related decisions are one of the most frequently subject to self-control failure and play a significant role in regulating mood and emotions. Failure to exercise self-control itself is associated with negative outcomes, including poor mental health and happiness. As such, prior research examined the link between food related lack of self-control as a personality trait or experiences of loss of control in food choices with emotional states, general affect and mood, referred to as affective well-being. However, these studies often focused on either trait or state self-control. This study examines how individual differences in eating-related lack of self-control and daily experiences of loss control in food choices are jointly related to affective well-being, captured daily as feelings and dimensional affect. In a 21-day study among a non-clinical sample of adults (N = 97), baseline individual differences in lack of self-control over eating was positively associated with the proportion of days participants reported experiencing loss of self-control in food choices. These individual differences in lack of self-control were positively associated with daily feeling of distraction, boredom, shame, tiredness, loneliness, aimlessness, and negatively associated with positive affect averaged across 21-days. Daily experiences of loss of self-control in food choices were associated with feeling more distracted, ashamed, tired, and experiencing less positive affect on the next day. This study provides preliminary evidence of the complementary associations of trait self-control, daily experiences of loss of control around food selection and affective well-being in daily life.