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If you're trying to lose weight, limiting your snack food options may be a bad idea, especially if you're obese. So says a study from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

To test responses to monotonous snacks, 31 obese and 27 non-obese women were divided into three groups. For two weeks, the women ate either a 300-calorie snack or a 100-calorie snack. The snack, which they indicated liking at the start of the study, remained the same every day. A control group ate no snack. Although there were no changes in women's motivation to obtain the food in the 100-calorie and no-snack groups, changes were significant in the 300-calorie group. While the non-obese women in this group had less motivation to get the snack food after the two-week period, obese women's motivation to obtain the food increased.

Researchers can't explain the differences, but they do offer this message: "Weight reduction plans that focus on limiting variety of snacks may be less successful in obese women," says Jennifer L. Temple, lead study author and assistant professor of exercise and nutrition sciences at the University of Buffalo in Buffalo, N.Y. "Limiting snack food variety may increase reinforcing value (which has been linked to increased caloric intake) and contribute to poor adherence to energy-restricting diets." The bottom line: If you want to use snacking to your advantage, snack on a variety of healthy foods.