Trying to get in shape for the summer? Feel like your spouse is trying to sabotage your diet?

You may be right, according to a study published this week in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.

Ontario researchers analyzed the effect of dieting on 42 people, including 20 couples and one father-daughter duo, and found that while many partners felt their dieting spouses had a positive influence on their eating habits, others felt rejected and even tried to sabotage their significant others' weight loss efforts.

Of the unsupportive spouses, some refused to alter their junk food habits, while others made snide comments.

"She'll sit down and eat a bag of cookies right in front of me," one dieter said of his wife.

One man refused to touch his wife's vegetarian cuisine, another tempted his wife with wine, which led to cheese and crackers and sabotaged her dieting efforts.

Judy Paisley, the study's lead author and an associate professor of nutrition at Toronto's Ryerson University, said many husbands feel rejected when their wives stop cooking in an effort to slim down, while female dieters sometimes become upset when their husbands refused to eat their new diet cuisine.

Still, others felt threatened by the thought of having a slimmer spouse who might ultimately reject the relationship as their confidence grows and waistlines shrink.

Click here to see the study (subscription required for full study).

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