Not all dieters are the same: Development of the Diet Balancing Scale

• Dieters can be categorized into two main types: balancers and abstainers. • Balancers strategically indulge, whereas abstainers stay away from any off-limit foods. • We develop the Diet Balancing Scale to identify these two types of dieters. • We test dieters’ attitudes toward ads with balancing vs. abstention taglines. We propose that dieters hold different lay beliefs about diet approaches, and we categorize dieters into two main types:...