Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Appetite journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/appet Cheat meals: A benign or ominous variant of binge eating behavior? Stuart B. Murray a,* , Eva Pila b , Jonathan M. Mond c , Deborah Mitchison d , Aaron J. Blashill e,f , Catherine M. Sabiston b , Scott Griffiths g a Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA b Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada c School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Health, University of Tasmania, TAS, Australia d Centre for Emotional Health, Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia; School of Medicine, Western Sydney University, Sydney, NSW, Australia e Department of Psychology, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA f San Diego State University/University of California San Diego Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology, San Diego, CA, USA g Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Cheat meal Binge eating Muscularity-oriented disordered eating Eating behaviors ABSTRACT Objective: Engagement in “cheat meals” has been recently documented as a socially endorsed dietary practice oriented towards pursuing physique ideals, and which bears qualitative semblance to disordered eating beha- vior. However, the clinical significance of this dietary practice remains unclear. Methods: We recruited a sample of young adults (n = 248; 56% women; M age = 19.29 ± 0.58) and examined the prevalence and characteristics of cheat meal engagement, including its associations with eating disorder pathology, psychological distress, and impairment in role functioning. Results: Findings revealed that 89.1% of participants engaged in cheat meal consumption that was either planned or spontaneous, with planned cheat meals being predominantly aimed at managing food cravings and sustaining strict dietary regimens. Among men, the frequency of cheat meal engagement was positively asso- ciated with global eating disorder symptoms (p = 0.04), and objective binge episodes (p = 0.03), however cheat meals were not associated with psychological distress or clinical impairment for either gender (p > 0.05). Conclusions: These preliminary findings suggest that cheat meal engagement is commonly endorsed among young adults, and particularly among men. Moreover, cheat meals may reflect psychopathological properties akin to binge episodes, although do not confer psychological distress. Future research is urged in elucidating the definitional properties of cheat meal engagement, and examining clinical implications for this widespread dietary practice. Recently, there has been increasing interest in the prevalence and correlates of muscularity-oriented eating and weight-control behaviors (Mitchison & Mond, 2015; Murray, Griffiths, & Mond, 2016). These behaviors are typically geared towards the development of a muscular body ideal, and are thought to include the simultaneous or periodic over-regulation of dietary protein and the restriction of dietary energy, rigid muscle building exercise regimes, and possible engagement with synthetic muscle building agents (Murray, Griffiths, & Mond, 2016; Murray et al., 2017). Attempts to further elucidate muscularity-oriented eating and weight-control behaviors have revealed potentially adverse health impacts, in terms of their associations with eating disorder psychopathology and medical instability (Murray, Accurso, Griffiths, & Nagata, 2018; Murray, Griffiths, Mitchison, & Mond, 2017; Murray et al., 2012), In further explicating the qualitative nature of muscularity-oriented eating behaviors, one recent content analysis ex- amined the behavioral practices espoused via pro-muscularity websites, noting a particular emphasis on rigid dietary and exercise practices (Murray, Griffiths, Hazery, Shen, Wooldridge & Mond, 2016). While unequivocally promoting a lean and muscular body ideal, the dietary practices most centrally propagated the strict regulation of protein in- take, and the restriction of dietary energy. Alongside this, a consistent theme was related to engagement in ‘cheat meals’, in which one's re- strictive and meticulously calculated dietary regimen may be aban- doned for a brief influx of ‘prohibited’ foods (Murray, Griffiths, Hazery, Shen, Wooldridge & Mond, 2016). Moreover, this analysis of blog, forum and static web-based content revealed that a common belief among those pursuing a hyper-muscular physique was that planned and regular engagement in cheat meals would help in achieving a lean and https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2018.08.026 Received 10 May 2018; Received in revised form 8 August 2018; Accepted 21 August 2018 * Corresponding author. Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, 401 Parnassus, San Francisco, CA, 94143, USA. E-mail address: drstuartmurray@gmail.com (S.B. Murray). Appetite 130 (2018) 274–278 Available online 23 August 2018 0195-6663/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T