Abstract

Objective

Sustained weight loss is difficult to achieve, and weight regain is common due to biological and psychological changes caused by calorie deprivation. These changes are thought to undermine weight loss efforts by making self-control more difficult. However, there is a lack of evidence showing a causal relationship between calorie deprivation and behavioral self-control.

Design

In this longitudinal field experiment, we tested whether a ten-day period of calorie deprivation leads to the impairment of behavioral self-control. Participants were randomly assigned to either restrict their calorie intake or to continue eating normally for the study period.

Main Outcome Measures

Participants were given a box of food and non-food ‘treats’ (i.e., chocolates and lottery tickets) that they were asked to resist until the end of the study. On the last day, researchers recorded the number of treats that remained for each participant.

Results

Nonparametric permutation tests revealed that calorie-deprived participants ate significantly more chocolates than control participants did (p = 0.036), but that participants did not differ in the number of lottery tickets ‘scratched’ by condition (p = 0.332).

Conclusion

This pattern of findings suggests that calorie deprivation impairs food-related self-control, but that this self-control deficit may not generalize beyond food-related tasks.

中文翻译：

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热量剥夺会损害饮食的自控能力，但不会损害其他行为

摘要

客观的

持续的体重减轻是很难实现的，并且由于热量剥夺引起的生理和心理变化，体重反弹很常见。这些变化被认为会使自我控制变得更加困难，从而破坏减肥的努力。然而，缺乏证据表明热量剥夺与行为自控之间存在因果关系。

设计

在这个纵向实地实验中，我们测试了为期十天的卡路里剥夺是否会导致行为自控力受损。参与者被随机分配到限制卡路里摄入量或在研究期间继续正常饮食。

主要观察指标

参与者得到一盒食物和非食物“零食”（即巧克力和彩票），要求他们在研究结束前抵制这些零食。在最后一天，研究人员记录了每位参与者剩余的零食数量。

结果

非参数排列测试表明，卡路里不足的参与者比对照组参与者吃的巧克力要多得多 ( p  = 0.036)，但参与者因条件“划伤”的彩票数量没有差异 ( p  = 0.332)。

结论

这种发现模式表明，卡路里剥夺会损害与食物相关的自我控制，但这种自我控制缺陷可能不会推广到与食物相关的任务之外。