The Impact of Consumer Self-regulation in Grocery Shopping on Subsequent Consumption of Healthy and Unhealthy Food

The purpose of the present paper is to investigate if there is any effect between the depletion of self-regulatory resources during the product selection when shopping for groceries and subsequent food consumption. More precisely, we propose that consumers who have to self-regulate in purchasing decisions because of their desire to keep their basket balanced with unhealthy and healthy food deplete their self-regulatory resources and that this will lead to an increase of the amount of subsequent consumed food. The findings of two laboratory experiments indicate that the amount of consumed food increases due to the depletion of self-regulatory resources and that this effect is moderated by the attitude towards healthy eating. If consumers were offered healthy food in addition to the unhealthy food for subsequent consumption, consumers were more likely to chose the healthy option after self-regulation.