Abstract: Restricted eating refers to consistent, cognitively-mediated efforts to restrict eating for the purpose of weight control. Considerable study has indicated that restricted eaters have cognitive biases in processing food cues, particularly high-energy or palatable food cues, relative to unrestricted eaters. Such biases are associated with specific patterns of electrophysiological activation in regions including the medial prefrontal cortex and cerebellum. Future experimental studies on restricted eating should employ strict selection criteria and employ varied methodological strategies including the odd-one-out and study-test paradigms to elucidate neural bases related to processing food cues and fully identify associated cognitive mechanisms and psychosocial influences in samples of Chinese restricted eaters.

Key words: restricted eating, food cues, cognitive bias, neural mechanism