Dieters Skip Doctors, Turn To 'Magical Thinking'
November 8, 2006
Besides extra pounds, dieters also seem to carry a hefty independent streak. A survey finds that 70 percent of Americans who are trying to lose weight are following their own diet plans and have no interest in seeking a doctor's help.
One-third have tried dietary supplements of unproven
benefit -Diet
pills and powders that promise to burn fat, boost
metabolism or melt pounds without the sweaty hard work
of exercise or the discipline and deprivation of diets,
the survey found.
Doctors say there is no safe way to lose more than a pound or two a week and no proof that unregulated, over-the-counter products help at all.
People need to get away from magical thinking," said Saul Shiffman, a University of Pittsburgh health psychologist who helped develop the survey. "It's easy to hope for a magic pill that's going to rev up their metabolism or shed their pounds."
He and the others involved in the survey were paid by GlaxoSmithKline PLC, which has an obvious interest in steering people away from dietary supplements. The company makes orlistat, sold in prescription form as Xenical and soon to be available over the counter.
But despite the survey's commercial ties, it still offers a realistic glimpse at some unrealistic dieting practices and highlights missed opportunities for doctors to help, said weight-loss specialists who attended a recent obesity conference in Boston, where the survey was presented.
You can do it!
"Everybody can lose
weight," said Dr. George Blackburn, a Harvard Medical
School nutrition expert familiar with the survey who
also has consulted for Glaxo. If people failed in the
past, "they didn't try long enough and effectively enough,"
he said.
Source from: http://www.msnbc.msn.com
|
