Effects of high calorie preloads on selective processing of food and body shape stimuli among dieters and nondieters.

Preloaded and nonpreloaded dieters (restrained eaters) and nondieters (unrestrained eaters) completed a modified version of the Stroop task to measure selective biases in cognitive processing. In two separate studies, a milkshake preload led to increased cognitive interference for body shape words, especially for restrained eaters. There were no differences between restrained and unrestrained eaters in Stroop interference for either common or forbidden food words, whether subjects were preloaded or not. Taken together, these results indicate that chronic dieting is associated with selective processing of body shape words.