Cognitive aspects of dietary restraint: Effects on person memory

Memory for weight‐, food‐, and appearance‐related information was examined in female restrained and unrestrained college students and in female obese and eating‐disordered patients. Subjects read an essay about another person and were later asked to recall the essay as completely as possible. As predicted, restrained students remembered more weight‐ and food‐related items than appearance‐related items in comparison to the unrestrained students. Similarly, the obese and anorexic patients recalled significantly more of the weight‐ and food‐related items than the other items. In both samples, restraint scores were positively correlated with the frequency with which subjects mentioned weight and food in an “accessibility” task. The discussion focused on the implications of these findings.