Judgments of body weight based on food intake: a pervasive cognitive bias among restrained eaters.

OBJECTIVE Two studies examined the influence of meal-size information on restrained and unrestrained eaters' judgments of body weight and size. METHOD In Study 1, restrained and unrestrained eaters made body-weight and body-size judgments of a woman who had eaten either a small meal or a large meal. In Study 2, participants watched a video of a woman eating a small or large meal, and selected from two photographs of women's bodies (a heavier one and a thinner one), the woman whom they had seen in the video. RESULTS Restrained eaters were influenced by meal-size information, judging women who had eaten a smaller meal as being thinner and weighing less (Study 1), and also choosing the thinner body to represent the woman who had eaten a smaller meal (Study 2). Unrestrained eaters were not influenced by food-intake information. CONCLUSION Restrained eaters' (but not unrestrained eaters') judgments of others appear to be biased by meal-size information, suggesting that restrained eaters' food- and weight-related cognitive biases might be more pervasive than has previously been assumed.