Background: Attitudes toward body shape and food play a role in the development and maintenance of
dysfunctional eating behaviors. Nevertheless, they are rarely investigated together. Therefore, this study aimed to
explore the interrelationships between implicitly assessed attitudes toward body shape and food and to investigate
the moderating effect on these associations of interindividual differences in problematic and nonproblematic eating
behaviors (i.e., flexible versus rigid cognitive control dimension of restraint, disinhibition).
Methods: One hundred and twenty-one young women from the community completed two adapted versions of
the Affect Misattribution Procedure to implicitly assess attitudes toward body shape (i.e., thin and overweight bodies)
and food (i.e., “permitted” and “forbidden” foods), as well as the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire to evaluate
restraint and disinhibition.
Results: The results revealed that an implicit preference for thinness was positively associated with a positive attitude
toward permitted (i.e., low-calorie) foods. This congruence between implicitly assessed attitudes toward body
shape and food was significant at average and high levels of flexible control (i.e., functional component of
eating). Moreover, an implicit preference for thinness was also positively associated with a positive attitude
toward forbidden (i.e., high-calorie) foods. This discordance between implicitly assessed attitudes was significant
at average and high levels of rigid control and disinhibition (i.e., dysfunctional components of eating).
Conclusions: These findings shed new light on the influence of congruent or discordant implicitly assessed
attitudes toward body shape and food on normal and problematic eating behaviors; clinical implications are
discussed.