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 might interfere or facilitate each other.

Design: 94 dieters completed an assessment of goals using Little’s personal project analysis. Participants identified 7 goals; one of which was pre-defined as adhering to diet. Over the beginning 14 days of their diet, participants completed an Ecological Momentary Assessment study recording their food intake in realtime. Every evening, participants reported their goal engagement and 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 were recorded. 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 food intake was a significant predictor of long-term weight-loss.

Conclusions: The results of this study suggest the impact of inter-goal conflict and facilitation on dieting is not via overall snack or food consumption.