¹Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Champaign, Illinois, USA

Correspondence: Dolores Albarracin (dalbarra@uiuc.edu)

Received 1 July 2008; Accepted 10 November 2008; Published online 26 February 2009.

Abstract

Communications to stimulate weight loss include exercise-promotion messages that often produce unsatisfactory results due to compensatory behavioral and metabolic mechanisms triggered by physical activity. This research investigated potential automatic facilitation of eating immediately after exercise messages in the absence of actual exercise. Two controlled experiments demonstrated greater than control food intake following exposure to print messages typical of exercise campaigns as well as subliminal presentation of action words associated with exercise (e.g., "active"). These inadvertent effects may explain the limited efficacy of exercise-promotion programs for weight loss, particularly when systematic dietary guidelines are absent.