With food, temptation may be a good thing

Or not.

"While dieters often banish tempting foods from their kitchens, a new study suggests that keeping some sweet treats around might be a good way to build willpower.

In three tests that presented female college students with tempting foods, researchers found that the women exerted greater self-control when they had previously been confronted with a sweet treat they had access to -- rather than just pictures or smells."

Of course, by eating, the co-eds had taken in more Calories than the pictures and smells would have provided and may not have been as hungry.

"For their study, which is published in the Journal of Consumer Research, the researchers recruited female college students for a series of food experiments. In each study, the women were told that a candy manufacturer was doing consumer research, which involved showing them pictures of the candies -- a food temptation - they could not immediately, akin to seeing an ad for candy.

Some of the women were also presented with a bowl of the candy and were told not to eat any - an accessible temptation they had to resist.

Soon afterward, the study volunteers were confronted with yet another lure: a bowl of M&Ms. The researchers found that women who'd already been tempted by the forbidden candy were more likely than those who'd merely seen pictures of that candy to exercise self-restraint around the M&Ms."

So what?

"'In other words, we believe that self-control can be trained,' Geyskens said."

Duh.

For this they needed to do research?

Idiots.