Abstract:

As a common strategy used to lose weight in female group, restrained eating becomes increasingly popular nowadays. However, previous studies have proved that it was not an effective method to lose or maintain weight. Although restricting their consumption consciously, in many circumstances, restrained eaters are even easier to overeat compared with unrestrained ones. Many studies have explored the causes of restrained eaters’ overeating and factors influencing it. This article reviewed researches about overeating among restrained eaters at home and abroad and summarized the two psychological mechanisms: attentional bias and inhibitory control deficit. What’s more, this article also generalized five influencing factors of overeating among restrained eaters, including preload, emotional arousal, ego depletion, cognitive resource distraction, personality and social factors. At last, we discussed inadequacies of previous studies and looked forward to the future researching directions.

Key words: restrained eating, overeating, attentional bias, inhibitory control