The effect of mood on food versus non-food interference among females who are high and low on emotional eating

Emotional eating is characterized by overeating following the experience of negative emotions. Emotional eating may cause significant psychological distress and health problems. Thus, it is important to better understand its underlying mechanisms. The study assessed how negative mood influences the ability to ignore the presence of high-calorie food images among females who are high or low on an emotional eating scale. Participants’ mood was manipulated by an autobiographic writing task (half of the participants described negative events and the other half emotionally neutral events). Then, they completed a computer task in which they were required to indicate whether a centrally presented image was of food or a non-food item as fast as possible. Next to the central image, there were additional images that were used for distraction. These images were also images of food or non-food items. Participants in the low emotional eating group showed greater distraction when food items were used for distraction. In contrast, those in the high emotional eating group were not distracted by food items. In fact, higher levels of emotional eating were associated with diversion of attention away from food stimuli, irrespective of mood. We suggest that these results reflect a broader avoidant strategy that is activated in response to emotionally negative content among individuals with emotional eating.