Inter-goal conflict and facilitation as predictors of adherence to dieting goals: an ecological momentary assessment study

Objectives: To examine dieting goals within a system of individual goals, and the patterns by personally-relevant goals mightinterfere or facilitate each other.Design: 94 dieters completed an assessment of goals using Little’spersonal project analysis. Participants identified 7 goals; one ofwhich was pre-defined as adhering to diet. Over the beginning14 days of their diet, participants completed an EcologicalMomentary Assessment study recording their food intake in realtime. Every evening, participants reported their goal engagementand which goals conflicted or facilitated with each other.Main outcome measures/results: Over the study duration,1452 days of food intake and goal conflict/facilitation wererecorded. Participants completed an average of 1.54 (SD= 0.85)snacks, an average of 0.94 (SD= 1.81) goal conflicts, and 4.16(SD = 4.70) goal facilitations per day. Inter-goal conflict was associated with a significant but small improvement on individuals’mood, but was not associated with daily dietary intake or longterm weight-loss. Similarly, inter-goal facilitation was not associated with daily dietary intake or long-term weight-loss. Daily foodintake was a significant predictor of long-term weight-loss.Conclusions: The results of this study suggest the impact ofinter-goal conflict and facilitation on dieting is not via overallsnack or food consumption.