Work

57 – Pediatric obesity: evidence from an integrated medical-psychological model

Year: 2012

Type: article

Abstract: According to the Theory of Ironic Processes of Mental Control (Wegner 1994) intentional thought suppression may paradoxically result in an unconscious activation of the suppressed thought (Deep Cognitive Activation).Chronic thought suppression may heighten the accessibility of suppressed thoughts to an extent that unwanted thoughtsparticularly under cognitive load -re-enter consciousness (Rebound-Effect) and influence (eating) behaviour.Method: Obese children/teenagers (n 20; 11 boys and 9 girls) aged from 12 to 17 years (M 5 14?15, SD 1?53) participated in an experimental study during residential treatment.After being exposed to their favourite snacks, subjects were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions, a suppression condition ('do not think of your favourite snack') and an expression condition ('try to think of your favourite snack').Simultaneously the amount of salivary secretion was measured.To test the accessibility of food-related concepts, subjects were instructed to complete several word fragment completion tasks under cognitive load (memorizing a 6-digit number).Finally, the amount of saliva secretion was measured for a second time.Results: Suppression subjects showed both during suppression (t(18) 5 2?11, P 5 0?05) and after suppression (t(18) 5 3?16, P , 0?01) significantly higher levels of saliva secretion compared with expression subjects.Conclusions: Our findings clearly demonstrate that suppression of food-related thoughts ironically increases saliva secretion.Consequently restrictive food intake may be a counterproductive strategy and may be one explanation why obesity therapy is often quite ineffective.

Source: Public Health Nutrition

DOI: 10.1017/s1368980012002315