Smoking as alternative to eating among restrained eaters: effect of food prime on young adult female smokers.

OBJECTIVE

Restrained eaters attempt to employ cognitive control over decisions to eat, which leaves them prone to eat in a disinhibited manner. This eating style is associated with elevated rates of smoking compared to the general population. The current study merged smoking and eating research methodology to investigate a mechanism that may underlie this association by testing whether a food prime, which has been found to elicit disinhibited eating in restrained eaters, could also motivate smoking as an alternative to eating.

METHOD

Using a randomized, 2-arm (Prime/No-Prime) between-subjects design, it was hypothesized that young adult female smokers who endorsed elevated dietary restraint and received a food prime would smoke more when given the option, compared to smokers who did not receive the food prime.

RESULTS

As predicted, restraint score moderated the effect of the food prime upon smoking behavior (latency to first puff, β = 1, t = 3.8, df = 123, p < .001) and cigarette craving (β = -.79, t = -2.9, df = 127, p < .005), suggesting that after a food prime, restrained-eating smokers may opt to smoke to prevent further food intake.

CONCLUSION

This study identified a pathway, namely violation of dietary restraint, linking eating and smoking behaviors that may contribute to the population-based covariance between disordered eating and tobacco use.