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Dieters'
Denial
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Chantal's
original food log underestimated her actual intake |
Though
two of his twenty patients actually had slower metabolisms,
the remaining 18 were vastly under-reporting their caloric
intake. Some people ate twice as much as they recorded and
exercised half as much.
"We
never found any evidence of lying. Everybody tends to underestimate,"
Heymsfield emphasizes. "But the heavier you are, the more
you tend to underestimate."
Heymsfield's
results suggested that much of today's obesity epidemic might
not necessarily be a physiological problem.
"People
have a limited knowledge of how many calories there are in
food," he says. "It's possible that recent increases in portion
size are confusing people."
However,
Heymsfield's follow-up research indicated that, deep down,
people really know what- and how much- they are eating.
"It's possible that recent increases
in portion size are confusing people," says Heymsfield.
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In
a second study, Heymsfield repeated the isotope-labeled water
experiment, this time letting the participants know that the
water would indicate how exact their food diaries were. This
time, the patients' records reflected their actual intake
much more accurately. Still, when confronted, study-subjects
insisted they hadn't kept better records because they knew
about the water. Some said they simply ate more than they
had in previous weeks- an impossible explanation, given that
these patients did not gain weight.
Heymsfield
doesn't believe the patients are consciously lying, but the
increased precision reveals that the patients do understand
serving sizes and calorie content. The root of the problem,
then, is a psychological one - a kind of self-deception that,
exacerbated by a food-obsessed, sedentary culture, overrides
physical fullness cues and allows people to over eat.
That
denial can be so strong may sound depressing to determined
dieters. But, according to Heymsfield, what it really means
is that people can lose weight and keep it off.
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Once
told about the revealing water, patient's food records
became more accurate |
"It
means, genetics aside, there are educational and social components
that are modifiable," he says.
Heymsfield
points to the inverse correlation between social class and
weight; wealthier people are thinner, on average, than poorer
people.
"It's
evident by age 16 or 17," says Heymsfield. "There is a big
weight difference between affluent teenage girls and those
from a lower socio-economic class. So, there are things one
can do to prevent becoming obese."
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