Table 3.

Categories of external cues that influence eating behavior.

External Cues	Description		Healthy BMI	Overweight/Obese BMI
Food environment: Availability and variety	Modifying eating behavior according to available amounts and variety of food		L2: “I mean even when I go out to eat I, you know, try to stay away from like the starchy foods. I try to, you know, have instead of a potato I usually have a double serving of vegetables.” L5 (formerly overweight): “And there’s so many choices so that’s also something that you have to deal with.”	OW6: “I’ll eat it now if it’s available. You know, if I walked through some reception party, yes, always.” FG1OW: At celebrations–“And everybody makes something different. Something that we usually don’t have.”
Food environment: Normative cues	Response to environmental indicators of eating (e.g., portion size, dietary guidelines)		L5 (formerly overweight): “I won’t want a portion that’s too big, it’s like if you’re at a restaurant they give you so much, it’s like I really don’t need that much, maybe I could like bring leftovers, I’ll bring some of it home or whatever. So it‘s portion definitely.” L3: “I’m pretty aware of what stuff you ought to eat and what stuff you ought to avoid and I try to make our meals healthy.“	OB10: “Um eating well, eating healthy and also um, um, portion size is a big thing to me and I struggle with it…Well if they say this is a single serving and I believe it, I’m like “that can’t be a single serving” so I tend to eat more than recommendations, you know, so having said this is a single serving, I’ll probably eat three times that amount… Right, it’s too little. And so I struggle with portion sizes. So I tend, that’s why I try to eat things that are health in my mind so I can eat a little bit more because its healthy.“ OB8: “Oh, I think nutrition is important because you have to be careful that you’re not eating too much fat. You have to be careful that you’re not eating foods that are high in salt content, high in sugar content. And you gotta eat a balance of food. A balance of green, leafy vegetables, squash and green peppers. You have to eat that balance of food because that’s where your nutrition’s gonna come from, a balance of food.”
Food environment: Sensory cues	Characteristics of food that modify eating behavior		L5: “How healthy it is or unhealthy, um that’s the top priority.“ L2: “It’s the corn, chicken cutlet, it has cheese in it. It looked good so I bought it.”	OB8: “Cause food’s gotta taste good in order to enjoy it. Has to taste good, has to be appealing. I try to go, if I go to restaurants, I’m going to restaurants that are known for the quality of their food.” FG3OWOB: “I think eating things that I find delicious and just enjoyable. I mean I eat, I love eating. I love food. And just… I get a lot of pleasure. You know, eating well to me can be like having a ginormous salad with all kinds of goodies in it or it can mean having a nice hot slice of pizza. It doesn’t necessarily…not so much defined by how nutritious it is, but is it something that makes me feel happy. And sometimes I feel like a salad makes me happy. Sometimes I feel like a donut makes me happy, or what have you. But that it’s satisfying and, you know, kind of like you finish it and you’re like “okay, that was worth it”.”
Overt social pressures to overeat or undereat	Comments and behaviors of family, friends and others that influence overeating or undereating	Overeat	L2: When eating out–“And they watch what I eat too and they’re like “Oh, so you’re not having potatoes, you’re just having vegetables”.” L3: “But at a celebration I feel like I ought to have a drink, again I will go ask for seltzer with lime because everybody assumes you’re drinking a gin and tonic.”	OB9: “It depends on the situation. Like if I’m somewhere and I know I’m gonna be insulting them if I don’t eat it. I’d swallow without chewing. That’s about it and I’d never try again. Like I tried salad before and never again. Like little things like that. Roast beef at a friend’s house and I didn’t want to be insulting and say “oh I don’t eat that.” So I just swallowed it and didn’t even chew it.“ FG2OWOB: “It’s Southern culture, you can’t go somewhere and not eat.”
		Undereat	L3: “My doctor told me “don’t eat things with added sugar”.” L5: “A lot of it was comments, so it’s just like crazy because I would never say those things to people. You know sometimes there’s reasons that they’re struggling with their weight or whatever it is and it’s not just like so black and white. Like, oh you’re being lazy. There’s other reasons that could be happening. And so yeah there was comments but there was also like ya know implications, ya know people implying things. Um yeah people can just be a little too blunt, sometimes.”	OB9: “Well both her mother and my father’s mother were obese. She I think is terrified that I’m going to be obese and so ever since I was eleven years old she’s hounded me about weight and, you know, are you sure you’re going to eat all of that? And I could go on. …I see them maybe twice a year because of distance, and I enjoy being with them but I always worry, you know, I’m afraid of like … is she watching everything I eat? And silently judging me or later going to tell me…yeah.”
Perceived social pressures to overeat or undereat	Feelings about being judged by others that influence overeating or undereating	Overeat	L1: “But I actually don’t like talking and eating. I mean I do it, you do it in certain settings. But I feel like you’re not paying attention to what you’re eating when you do that and you’re just more into the conversation, you’re just kind of putting everything in your mouth.” Same participant: “So I actually prefer not to do that. I actually prefer to eat alone, cause then I’m like really focused on the food and how much I’m eating and I can actually taste it and enjoy it.” L5: “Um, but depends on the setting like, if I’m out to eat with my friends and they’re all eating dessert, then I’m more likely to get something like that. Um, I guess it depends on the setting, if it’s in a restaurant or at home. Um, like when I’m on my own I’ll just basically eat mostly healthy.”	OB7: “I just think when one is alone, you know you can sort of dive in be you know, be ravenous not you know perhaps make a tiny bit of a mess. Not be a complete pig but still if one is alone, one doesn’t have to pay attention, if one is in public one has to be a little more delicate in one‘s eating activities. Yeah I think I’m a little better mannered when I’m out in public than I am by myself yeah.” OB9: “Yes, nobody’s there to judge you. Nobody’s there to force you to eat something you don’t want to eat. It’s comfortable eating.”
		Undereat	“L3: And I really didn’t need to lose weight but you know, you have a coffee break and everybody is just talking about the Atkins diet. You go out to lunch and everybody is talking about the Atkins diet. It’s like, “okay, I think I’m on the Atkins diet”. I lasted one day. One day haha. I thought “this is just bizarre”.” L5 (formerly overweight): “I wasn’t happy with my weight. I wasn’t happy with ya know, people do treat you differently if you know they see something that is a problem, that’s like, oh you need to fix that. And like for me it was my weight and I was just self-conscious and I was just tired of family and friends like making comments, ya know implying things. So it was just like, ok I’m sick of this I need to do this and I need to feel good about myself.”	OB7: “I think one naturally kind of pays attention to sort of how energetic, how ravenous somebody is. So I may try to you know be a little more polite when I’m with others than I might be with myself. And if, I will notice someone who doesn’t enjoy food as much as I do.” OW6: “And the comments actually we made this big joke…because she kept saying “you look fabulous” and I said, you know, there are three stages of life.I read this: youth, middle age, and you look fabulous. But no one is saying like “you’ve lost weight”. I don’t think hardly anyone is saying that but they keep saying “how fabulous!” and its why. That’s what they are talking about. And it’s just kind of funny.”

Representative quotes have been selected from participants with a healthy BMI (interviews), and participants with an overweight or obese BMI (interviews and focus groups).