Memory Bias towards Food-Related Cues in Restrained Eaters

Restrained eating refers to propensity to restrict food intake in order to keep weight. Memory is a cognitive processing of encoding, storage and extracting information. Information and experience in the past provide guidance to present and future behavior with the help of memory. Previous researches verified that compared with unrestrained eaters, restrained eaters had memory bias towards food-related cues. Future studies should be conducted to clarify cognitive characteristics in different memory stages of restrained eaters, and sub-groups of restrained eaters (successful restrained eaters and unsuccessful restrained eaters). Different food types should also be taken into consideration to find out cognitive mechanism of restrained eaters, thus providing theory to clinical treatment.