Justifying by "healthifying": When expected satisfaction from consumption closure increases the desire to eat more and biases health perceptions of unhealthy leftovers.

Given ongoing concerns about worldwide obesity, a rapidly growing body of research has sought to identify factors that drive consumption of energy-dense foods and snacks with little nutritional value. The present research contributes to this literature by exploring the role of consumption closure-a state characterized by perceiving a given eating occasion as finished or complete-on people's desire to eat more. More specifically, four studies demonstrate that when a small (vs.