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Slash the other three tires
The disinhibition reflex
The response is called a disinhibition reflex. The thinking goes that if a food is bad in general, with no sense that the dose makes the poison, then having any of it means the day is already blown, so there is no reason to stop. Spencer Nadolsky compares it to getting a flat tire and then slashing the other three because you might as well.
Restricting by belief
Choosing not to eat something just because you want to is a very different position from restricting because you believe the food is bad. The second shows up often in the fitness industry, and it is behind many cases of disordered eating patterns built on associations like these. It doesn't happen to everyone.
The same pattern can attach to any nutrient treated as bad in itself, including sugar.
What did the milkshake experiments show?
In 1975, Peter Herman and Deborah Mack ran a study in which people drank a milkshake and then tasted ice cream. Dieters ate more ice cream than non-dieters, while non-dieters ate less after the shake. Herman and Janet Polivy called this counter-regulation. Dieters appeared to treat a broken rule as permission to keep going.
What did starvation do to men's relationship with food?
During the Minnesota Starvation Experiment of 1944 and 1945, Ancel Keys followed 36 men through six months of semi-starvation, eating about half their usual calories. The men became preoccupied with food, collecting recipes and cookbooks and talking about meals. When refeeding began, many ate far past fullness for weeks. The study was designed to inform relief efforts for people starved in wartime Europe.
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