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This experiment was designed to investigate if prior experience of eating once a day will affect activity-based anorexia (ABA). During a first phase of the experiment, two groups of preexposed rats were given daily access to food during 1 h, another two groups were not exposed to the food restriction schedule. The second experimental phase consisted of the traditional procedure to develop ABA, two groups of rats (one preexposed and another non-preexposed) received access to food for 1 h a day and had free access to a running wheel for the remaining 23 h. The other two groups (one preexposed and one non-preexposed) were simply submitted to the food schedule but had no access to the running wheels. Results showed that preexposed rats with access to running wheels showed a relative less reduction in body weight, and that they ate and ran more than non-preexposed rats. In agreement to the adaptation hypothesis, it is concluded that ABA results from interference with the adaptation to a new schedule of food availability due to the development of an anticipatory behaviour. The contribution of activity to ABA, however, cannot be discarded.
