The present demonstration of an association between impatience (or impulsivity) and obesity is not a new idea. In 1971, Schachter incorporated impatience as an element of his psychological theory of obesity. The theory viewed the obese as dominated by a hyperreactivity to cues in the external environment at the cost of accurate processing of internal cues, including cues that signal time passage (Gardner et al., 1984; Rodin, 1975) and satiety. Schachter's theory was subject to many tests in its time. It was subsequently abandoned when investigators could not consistently demonstrate that the obese were more easily distracted by external cues. Unfortunately, the remaining and more reliable predictions of his theory were then also forgotten.
