From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishself-defeatingˌself-deˈfeating adjective FAILcausing even more problems, or causing exactly the same problems and difficulties that you are trying to prevent or deal with Constant dieting can be self-defeating.
Examples from the Corpus
self-defeating• Attempts to stir up nationalistic feeling at such times are bound to be self-defeating.• Flagrant disregard for the evidence freely available in libraries at home and abroad was self-defeating.• So there you have it: narrowly self-interested behaviour is ultimately self-defeating.• The equal opportunities strategy is, the writers claim, likely to be self-defeating.• It's time to end the self-defeating cycle of overeating and dieting.• They learn to then shift from negative, self-defeating internal dialogue towards positive, more realistic, and confidence-building self-speech.• Members of a self-defeating organiza-tion are, as a result of prior negative experiences, inclined to believe the worst.• As this diagram suggests, a self-defeating organiza-tional behavior pattern is more than a single misguided strategy or reaction.• In self-defeating organizations, poor performance comes to resemble this sort of eternally perpetuating cycle.• Why do the retraining efforts of self-defeating organizations tend to create at least as many difficulties as they resolve? 