At an initial glance, a new study from the Journal of Consumer Research appears to have absolutely nothing to do with eating disorders. It wasn't about magazines or models or the purchase of diet products. The title of the paper had the rather bland-sounding titled of "Counteractive Construal in Consumer Goal Pursuit." That sounds as exciting as organizing my sock drawer. Rather, what caught my eye was the title of a news brief about the research titled "Resisting temptation is easier for those who exaggerate the threat."

And I thought, "Huh. That sounds a lot like what happens in eating disorders."

It sure does.

The authors of the research did four different studies, which they looked at to draw their conclusions. Two of those studies had to do with dieting and weight loss.

From a press release:

“Four experiments show that when consumers encounter temptations that conflict with their long-term goals, one self-control mechanism is to exaggerate the negativity of the temptation as a way to resist, a process we call counteractive construal,” the researchers write.

For example, in one study, female participants were asked to estimate the calories in a cookie. Half the participants were told that they have the option of receiving the cookie as a complimentary gift for participation and half were not. The results showed that consumers with a strong dieting goal construed the cookie as having more calories and being more damaging to the attainment of their long-term goal of losing weight.

{snip}

In [another] study, female participants entered a room that either had posters depicting fit models or nature scenery. “Participants who were exposed to posters depicting fit models (goal-priming stimuli) were more likely to exaggerate the calories in a tempting drink that they expected to consume later on, and consequently consumed less when offered the drink,” the authors write.

The relevance to eating disorders is obvious, even when you ignore all of the stuff about weight loss. That's not what I find the most interesting. The key words that leaped off the page at me were "resisting temptation" and "exaggerate the threat." For many people, temptation is temptation. Someone who is predisposed to an eating disorder, however, may be much more likely to view temptation as a threat. You can add me to that category. People with AN in particular are prone to asceticism, which Wikipedia defines as "a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from various sorts of worldly pleasures (especially sexual activity and consumption of alcohol) often with the aim of pursuing religious and spiritual goals."

Want something even more ascetic that renouncing sex and booze? Renounce food. If these things weren't considered somehow "tempting"--read any nutrition advice about the holidays and you'll see what I mean--then they wouldn't need to be renounced. Many people with AN struggle with including pleasurable things in their lives. I'm not talking about pleasure from a night with your latest order from Good Vibes and a pair of AA batteries. I'm talking about the pleasure of relaxing in front of a fire, leaving the dishes until morning, going to a party even though you have a paper due the next day. Little things. I don't find them alluring as much as I find them anxiety-provoking, perhaps because they are so alluring to me. The thought of holding up a bank doesn't cause me anxiety because I have no desire to do so.

So there we have the part about "resisting temptation." Now we get to the part about "exaggerating the threat." The all work, no play work ethic of mine gets its oomph largely from my fears of what will happen if I play. How can I relax when there are stories that need researching and writing? How can I leave the dishes until morning when there might be a bug problem? How can I skip working on my paper, which could mean that I do horribly, fail the paper, fail the class, fail out of college, and wind up living in a cardboard box?

Like I said, "exaggerating the threat."

I'm a veteran calorie counter. When I'm wrong about the calories in something (which I occasionally am, although after 10 years, there's not a whole lot that I haven't already looked up), it's because I grossly over-estimated the number of calories in something, not an underestimate. An extra bite becomes 1000 extra calories in my mind. And when you consider that food is anxiety-provoking to people with eating disorders, there's already that tendency to exaggerate how awful, fattening, and massively portioned a food was.

Besides my food issues, I am also terrified of spiders. I've whacked off several roaches, millipedes, centipedes, and other bugs I didn't take that good of a look at. I don't like these bugs, but I can at least get rid of them with some shred of self-respect. Spiders are another matter entirely. Even a daddy long-legs seems huge to me. I see one and I scream like a girl. The other girls in my dorm always asked me to be on spider patrol because I was a "biology person." All I could think was that I use a microscope, not a fly swatter. Spiders seem massive to me- a literal interpretation of exaggerating the threat.

So when food seems far more threatening than it is tempting, it's easy to see how avoiding food would become almost instinctual.