Research report Does negative mood drive the urge to eat? The contribution of negative mood, exposure to food cues and eating style Natalie J. Loxton a, *, Sharon Dawe b , Allison Cahill b a School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld. 4072, Australia b School of Psychology, Griffith University, Mt Gravatt Campus, Brisbane, Qld. 4111, Australia Introduction The increasing rate of obesity is well established with the World Health Organization now ranking obesity in the top five global health problems, outranking high cholesterol, unsafe sex and alcohol use (World Health Organization, 2009). However, while the availability and promotion of high fat content foods and increasing portion size contributes to increasing obesity rate (Davis, 2009; Wansink & van Ittersum, 2007), many individuals with the same access to food and associated images fall well within the healthy weight range; a small proportion struggle with the opposite problem of being seriously underweight. This raises the question as to why, in this obesogenic environment, all do not become excessively overweight and/or develop increasingly problematic eating such as compulsive overeating and poor food choice. One possible mechanism that may play a role in shaping eating patterns is individual differences in responsivity to food cues (Staiger, Dawe, & McCarthy, 2000). Certainly exposure to the sight and/or smell of palatable foods elicits an appetitive response in normal weight individuals (e.g., Beaver et al., 2006). This responsivity is even greater in some clinical groups, e.g., restrained eaters, overweight children and those with bulimia nervosa (Carter, Bulik, Lawson, Sullivan, & Wilson, 1997; Fedoroff, Polivy, & Herman, 1997; Jansen et al., 2003; Staiger et al., 2000). However, eating patterns are also influenced by emotional state with negative mood a widely investigated precipitant to binge-eating. This is a central premise of affect-regulation models of bulimia in which overeating can be viewed as a strategy to reduce negative affect (e.g., Stice, 2001). Correlational, longitudinal and patient reports/diary studies support this positive relationship between negative mood and eating (Macht, 2008). For example, Stice, Presnell, Shaw, and Rohde (2005) found in a sample of adolescent girls that each depressive symptom in early adolescence (age 11– 14) increased the odds of being obese four years later by a factor of almost five (although the effect of depressive symptom became non-significant when controlling for dietary restraint, compensa- tory behaviours and perceived parental obesity). While it is clear that general feelings of dysphoria co-occur with (perhaps even cause) overeating and subsequent weight gain, investigations of the role of state negative affect as a proximal factor triggering eating have produced mixed results. For example, Chua, Touyz, and Hill (2004) found women with Binge Eating Disorder (BED) increased food consumption following a negative mood induction process (viewing a sad film) compared with those in a neutral mood condition. On the contrary, in another sample of women with BED, Telch and Agras (1996) found no difference in food consumed following a negative mood induction. Women in the negative mood condition, though, were more likely to label Appetite 56 (2011) 368–374 ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 9 September 2010 Received in revised form 24 December 2010 Accepted 7 January 2011 Available online 14 January 2011 Keywords: Disinhibited Eating Negative mood induction Food cue exposure ABSTRACT The current study investigated whether negative mood alone, or in conjunction with exposure to food cues, influences the urge to eat. Female participants (N = 160) were allocated to either a negative or neutral mood induction procedure followed by exposure to either a preferred food cue or a non-food cue. Participants reported their urge to eat at baseline, following the mood induction procedure, and following the cue exposure, as well as completing measures of restrained and disinhibited eating. Contrary to prediction, urge to eat decreased following the mood induction procedure for those in the negative mood condition. This was not influenced by eating style (i.e., restrained or disinhibited eaters). Urge to eat subsequently increased following exposure to the food, but not the non-food, cue. This effect was moderated by negative mood and eating style with disinhibited eating being positively associated with urge to eat for those women in the negative mood condition. These findings suggest that negative mood plays a role in the tendency to overeat, but only in the context of personally desirable food cues and for a subgroup of women with a history of disinhibited eating. ß 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. E-mail address: n.loxton@uq.edu.au (N.J. Loxton). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Appetite journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/appet 0195-6663/$ – see front matter ß 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2011.01.011