How food-related warnings backfire among dieters

A lot of people with controlling parents automatically react against suggestions or information by other people, even to their own detriment. Maybe this is part of the cause of these results. Some of it might simply be that the messages bring to mind things the dieters like.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-01/cfb-mft012516.php

Public Release: 26-Jan-2016
Messages from the food police
How food-related warnings backfire among dieters
Cornell Food & Brand Lab

We have all seen messages from the "food police" telling us that sugary snacks are bad. But is it possible that seeing these messages actually make us more likely to eat sugary snacks? Researchers at Arizona State University, Nguyen Pham, Naomi Mandel, and Andrea Morales, show, in new research published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, that these messages backfire among dieters. They find that dieters ate 39% more cookies after seeing a "food police" style message that says, "All sugary snacks are bad" than those who saw a positive message."

•••••