“I deserve a treat”: understanding and assessing compensatory licensing beliefs involving exercise and unhealthy snacking

Regular exercise benefits health and wellbeing in numerous ways; however, some of these benefits can be undermined by compensatory behaviours such as the consumption of unhealthy, energy-dense snacks following exercise. The studies within this thesis investigate the relationship between exercise and unhealthy snacking. The findings extend our understanding of the role of exercise motivation in the activation of compensatory licensing beliefs following exercise, provide preliminary evidence for a potential intervention to alter licensing beliefs and compensatory eating behaviours around exercise, and provides a new instrument that may be useful for assessing licensing beliefs between exercise and unhealthy snacking.