To Approach or to Avoid: The Role of Ambivalent Motivation Towards High Calorie Food Images in Restrained Eaters

Individuals who engage in restrained eating are often torn between eating enjoyment and weight control. Recent research found visual attention to threat varied according to motivation, and people with ambivalent motivation about threat showed greater anxiety.

A total number of 225 individuals high in restrained eating completed a passive viewing task in which they were presented with image pairs of high calorie food and neutral objects while their eye movements were tracked. Participants also rated their motivation to look towards and away from food images and completed measures of mood and thought-shape fusion.

Two-thirds of participants reported strong motivation to look at food images, and the rest were highly motivated to avoid, were indifferent, or were ambivalent. Visual attention to food images varied according to motivation. Ambivalent individuals had higher thought-shape fusion scores and were more restrained in their eating than engagers and indifferent individuals.

These findings suggest that motivation to attend to and avoid food images are important factors to study, as they are associated with attentional biases and eating pathology. Clinical implications are also discussed.