Obesity and being overweight are global problems and yet not everyone is overweight or obese. Australian researchers looked at self-regulation and dichotomous thinking to examine whether they influence the maintenance of a normal Body Mass Index (BMI).
The role of self-regulation and dichotomous thinking
Self-regulation refers to the ability to change one’s behaviour by making deliberate self-corrective adjustments towards a goal or to maintain an achieved goal. This includes four components: goal-setting, self-monitoring, self-evaluation and taking action. Current lifestyles tend to be more sedentary and involve greater excess food consumption than in the past. To maintain one’s weight within the normal BMI range requires self-regulation skills.
Patterns of dichotomous thinking (e.g., thinking of food as good or bad) may harm self-regulation ability because it is less flexible (e.g., a dietary lapse may be seen as a failure rather than a minor setback).
Plummer and Walker (2021) conducted a study to examine the effects of self-regulation and dichotomous thinking on BMI and weight pattern. The weight patterns measured include whether participants considered themselves to be a weight-loss maintainer, lifelong weight maintainer, weight cycler, weight loser or a weight regainer.
About the study
Australians aged between 20 and 30 years (142 females, 56 males), completed an online survey which included measures of weight self-regulation behaviours (e.g., setting a goal weight, monitoring weight and taking action if there is discrepancy between the two) and dichotomous thinking (e.g., thinking of food as ‘good’ or ‘bad’). Participants also reported their BMI and weight pattern throughout adulthood.
Study findings
Contrary to the researcher’s predictions, self-regulation was unrelated to current or lowest BMI but higher self-regulation scores predicted a larger highest lifetime BMI. Higher self-regulation scores were also associated with a higher degree of dichotomous thinking (in males and females) and higher disordered eating scores (for females only).
These findings suggest that too much focus on weight-related behaviours may be counterproductive. The researchers suggested that the self-regulation measure may have captured unhelpful behaviours (e.g., preoccupation with weight and shape) and dichotomous thinking styles.
Self-regulation and dichotomous thinking varied with weight pattern for females only. Self-regulation scores were lower among lifelong maintainers than weight-retainers and weight cyclers. Dichotomous thinking was higher in weight cyclers than lifelong maintainers.
Study conclusions
The researchers recommend that weight management approaches are tailored to men and women and take into account weight pattern across the lifetime, not just current weight. They also suggest treatment involve helping clients to focus on non-weight-related behaviours rather than weight behaviours and eating. This may encourage automatic self-regulation to happen with less disturbance from weight and shape-related thoughts.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00049530.2021.1883999