College of Arts & Sciences

Clare Mangubat

College of Nursing & Health Professions Nursing

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Evan Forman Psychology

Dietary Lapse Type by Location in the Context of a Weight Loss Treatment

Enhancing weight loss treatments is critical for treating obesity. Non-adherence to weight-loss diets, called dietary lapses, impedes weight loss. Understanding frequencies of lapse type at different locations could improve tailoring of treatments. Participants followed a weight-loss diet and answered surveys 6 times a day about lapse triggers and if a lapse occurred, lapse location--home, school, work, and restaurant/cafe--and lapse type--eating an unknown amount of calories (UC), planned lapse or eating more calories presently while planning to eat fewer later (P), eating an avoided food item (AF), having an unintended eating episode (U), and/or eating a larger portion than intended (LP). Frequencies of lapse type were the following at each location: home: 27.5% (AF), 22.7% (LP), 21.4% (P), 17.4% (U), 10.9% (UC); school: 28.1% (P), 27.1% (UC), 19.8% (AF), 17.7% (LP), 7.3% (U); work: 28.5% (AF), 20.7% (P), 18.9% (UC), 15.6% (U), 16.3% (LP); restaurant/cafe: 29.1% (P), 25.4% (LP), 18.0% (AF), 16.7% (UC) 10.8% (U). Our results imply that patterns of lapse type may differ based on location, which can inform tailoring of weight loss treatments through teaching coping skills related to frequency of lapse type in certain locations.