Imagine you’re walking through town and you pass the treacle waffle stand. The sweet scent of syrup fills your nose. Near you, someone is eating a waffle; your mouth waters. What do you do? Do you give in to temptation?
Clinical psychologist Renate Neimeijer discovered that regular dieters run a greater risk of giving in than people who’ve never worried about their weight. People on a diet – this includes people suffering from anorexia – are much more focused on food. ‘They’re so focused on it that it can cause people to maintain an unhealthy diet, either by eating too little or too much.’
Neimeijer researched the effect of this increased focus on dieters who, in spite of their best intentions, have trouble maintaining their diets. It turns out that dieters are more vulnerable in certain situations.
Alluring scent
‘In situations where you decide what and how much you’re going to eat, you’re focused on your diet – which makes it easier to stick to it. But if you’re distracted, the chances of giving in to temptation are much greater’, she says. In other words, it’s easier to resist the alluring scent of freshly made chips if you’re in the cafeteria to get lunch than when you’re there for a meeting.
Your mood also plays an important part. During experiments where Neimeijer measured the test subjects’ attention to food, dieters who were in a good mood reached for food more readily. ‘The risk factor of overeating is always there. Maybe it’s because a good mood is automatically associated with eating. Social situations such as parties and other get-togethers always include food.’
People who never diet displayed inverse behaviour: they went for food when they were in a bad mood.
Turned off food
So what’s the trick to losing weight? It’s impossible to avoid distraction. And avoiding good moods isn’t a great idea either. Neimeijer thinks one of her experiments, where she measured how quickly test subjects responded to pictures of food, might provide helpful insight.
‘You could turn it around. Rather than having them click pictures of food, we might tell them to specifically avoid them. This method is already being used to treat alcoholics and food addicts. Although we should be careful: we don’t want to turn people off food entirely.’