Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be sharing some of my past most-loved-content. The below is an updated version of one of my most popular post from 2013. 

If I asked you to create a list of “forbidden” foods, I would bet it’s more than likely your list would contain ice cream and milkshakes. Even if they aren’t your personal crave-inducing foods, you can at least agree that they belong on the list. 

Scientists and researchers feel the same. They love to use both of these foods to analyse eating habits, particularly concerning dieting and overeating. Let’s take a look at a couple of studies and see what they found. 

Restriction and Guilt

In every study, the participants completed a survey to measure two components of restrained eating. 

The first is restrictive eating – the desire and effort to avoid eating unhealthy food. 

The second is eating guilt – the tendency to feel guilty after eating something unhealthy. 

People could then be roughly divided into two groups: the restrained eaters versus non-restrained eaters. An easier way to think of it is dieters versus non-dieters. 

How Dieting Affects Eating

In the first experiment, fifty-seven female college students at Northwestern University were used as part of the study. They were led to believe that the goal of the study was to evaluate the taste of several ice cream samples. The actual purpose of the study was to determine how diet thinking might affect eating. 

The women were arbitrarily divided into three groups based on the number of 250ml milkshakes they were given (none, one, and two milkshakes). After drinking the shakes, the subjects were asked to taste and rate three flavours of ice cream. 

They were allowed to eat as much ice cream as they wanted and tasted the ice cream in private to prevent self-consciousness from affecting consumption. The researchers provided a generous amount of ice cream so that large amounts could be eaten without making an appreciable dent in the supply. 

So what were the results? The non-restrained eaters or non-dieters performed as you would expect; they ate less ice cream in proportion to the amount of milkshakes consumed. 

The restrained eaters or dieters, however, displayed the total opposite behaviour. Those who drank two milkshakes then ate the most ice cream, identified by the researchers as a “counter-regulation” effect. 

Forcing the dieters to overeat or “blow their diet” caused them to release their food inhibitions. They decided they had ruined their diet anyway so why not go to town with their eating. 

Perception Is More Important Than Reality

An interesting aside as part of this is how calories affect how much someone eats. And not the actual calories, but the perceived calories. A similar experiment was run and this time some participants were told that the milkshakes were high in calories and some were told that the milkshakes were low in calories. In both cases, the milkshakes were identical and contained the exact same amount. 

So what happened? Those who were told they had drunk a high-calorie milkshake ate the most ice cream; those who were told they had drunk a low-calorie milkshake ate less ice cream. But once again, this only happened for restrained eaters or “dieters”. For those that weren’t restrained eaters, it had no effect.

Self Esteem And Eating

There was another study involving 78 female college students from the University of Toronto. They were led to believe that the purpose of the study was to evaluate the effects of temperature on taste perception. Once again the real goal was to determine how dieting and self-esteem might affect eating. 

Before starting the experiment, the women were given a survey that would help determine their self-esteem. The women were then arbitrarily divided into two groups – one group was given a 450mL milkshake while the other group was given nothing. 

After drinking the shakes (or not), the subjects were asked to taste and rate three flavours of ice cream. They were informed that after the experiment was over, the ice cream would be thrown out so they should help themselves to as much as they wanted.  The researchers made sure ample ice cream was provided and gave them just under 1kg of each ice cream flavour. 

So what were the results? The non-dieters naturally regulated their eating; those who had the milkshakes ate less ice cream. The dieters, however, again displayed the opposite behaviour. Those who drank the milkshakes ate the most ice cream. 

And dieters with low self-esteem were the biggest consumers, eating the most ice cream if they had also had a milkshake. 

The researchers concluded that dieting and self-esteem have a direct impact on food consumption. And just like in the first study, by making the dieters overeat or ‘blow their diet‘ it caused them to release their food inhibitions and eat more. 

Good Intentions, Poor Outcome

The desire and effort to avoid eating unhealthy food and the tendency to feel guilty after eating unhealthily are rather common. 

If asked, those who think this way would probably say it helps to keep them on the straight and narrow. If they didn’t have these strong negative emotions linked to “bad food” then in no time they would be gorging non-stop on pizza and ice cream.  

In reality, as the research shows, we see the opposite. The black and white thinking around diet is what causes the boom and bust style eating. Rather than preventing unhealthy eating, it actually causes it. 

With this mindset, when you do “slip up,” trouble is just around the corner. 

Want Help?

What’s been demonstrated with these experiments is common with the clients who seek out Seven Health for help. Their eating is a roller coaster ride of being “good” followed by the inevitable slide into being “bad”. And they want to get off the ride. 

I’m a leading expert and advocate for full recovery. I’ve been working with clients for over 15 years and understand what needs to happen to recover.

I truly believe that you can reach a place where the eating disorder is a thing of the past and I want to help you get there. If you want to fully recover and drastically increase the quality of your life, I’d love to help.

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