Post by Bozur on Sept 26, 2009 20:12:53 GMT -5
Pessimism helps people reduce weight
telegraph.co.uk — A healthy diet of pessimism helps people lose weight, claim scientists who found that your personality state influences weight loss. Researchers found that being too optimistic actually harmed your ability to stick to a diet and that negative emotions could have a positive effect on changing your behaviour. More…
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Pessimism helps people reduce weight
A healthy diet of pessimism helps people lose weight, claim scientists who found that your personality state influences weight loss.
By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent
Published: 7:00AM BST 25 Sep 2009
Researchers found that being too optimistic actually harmed your ability to stick to a diet and that negative emotions could have a positive effect on changing your behaviour.
The scientists followed obese patients undergoing a weight loss programme clinic and tested them to see what kind of personality they had.
They discovered that all of the volunteers became more optimistic as the weight dropped off which helped motivate them to stick to their new healthy regime.
But those who started out with too much struggled to lose weight initially.
The study published in the journal BioPsychoSocial Medicine was led by Hitomi Saito from Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan.
The researchers psychologically profiled 101 obese patients undergoing combined counselling, nutrition and exercise therapy at the Kansai Medical University Hospital Obesity Clinic over a period of six months.
Patients’ psychosocial characteristics before and after attending the clinic were assessed using questionnaires designed to identify patients’ personality types.
They found that patients who were able to improve their self-awareness through counselling were more likely to lose weight than those who were not.
Optimism improved for most patients after the six months, although this was not related to weight loss.
In fact, patients who started the programme with high levels of optimistic characteristics were less likely to lose weight.
“This result supports previous findings that some negative emotion has a positive effect on behaviour modification because patients care more about their disease,” said the researchers.
However, the overall improvement in optimistic ego state is not necessarily detrimental, as this increased optimism should result in patients maintaining the healthy lifestyle achieved at the clinic.
“It is important to enhance patients’ self-effectiveness and self-control in order to reduce psychological stress and to maintain the weight loss”, said the authors.
Previous studies have shown that being unhappy can actually increase your results at university and increase your motivation.
However an American study last month showed that optimism increased life expectancy and lowered risk of heart disease.
www.telegraph.co.uk/science/6156233/Pessimism-helps-people-reduce-weight.html