Research paper
Polivy J, Herman CP. Dieting and binging: a causal analysis. American Psychologist. 1985;40(2):193-201. doi:10.1037/0003-066x.40.2.193. PMID: 3857016.
Why we cite it
Published in American Psychologist, this paper presents the causal argument that dieting causes binging rather than the reverse. It is a theoretical analysis, not an experiment — its own title is ”Dieting and binging: A causal analysis”, and its abstract says the authors ”first establish the association… and present sequence data”, then ”propose that dieting causes binging by promoting the adoption of a cognitively regulated eating style.” Polivy and Herman argue that when people replace their natural physiological hunger/satiety signals with cognitive dietary rules (“I shouldn’t eat that”), they become vulnerable to disinhibition: once the cognitive boundary is breached, eating becomes unregulated. This is the “what-the-hell effect” — a dieter who perceives their diet as “broken” abandons restraint entirely, consuming far more than someone who was never dieting in the first place. The paper is foundational to the project’s emphasis on building sustainable habits rather than relying on restrictive rules, and explains why rigid all-or-nothing approaches to eating reliably backfire.
DOI: 10.1037/0003-066x.40.2.193 · PubMed 3857016 · Publisher