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Unsuccessful Slenderizing
Plus, SAD Days in Winter and Spring
By Rita Rubin
Special to ABCNEWS.com
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SLIM CHANCE TO TRIM DOWN
It’s the end of January. And how is your New Year’s resolution to lose weight faring?
My, that looks tasty. Maybe next week would be a better time to diet.. (DigitalStock)
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What? You’re back to chowing down on cheeseburgers and chocolates? Two researchers from the University of Toronto aren’t surprised.
In the latest issue of the International Journal of Eating Disorders, the team describes the so-called “false hope syndrome.”
Basically, it goes like this: You resolve to trim down. Just making that decision empowers you. You feel hopeful, even though you may have failed repeatedly in the past. And then, boom. You become frustrated that you’re not losing weight quickly enough. You miss your fettucine Alfredo or whatever your fattening favorite is. You fall off the wagon and onto the Good Humor truck.
And the higher your expectations — that is, the more times you’ve lost weight in the past — the harder you fall, according to the psychologists’ study of female undergraduates.
Whether or not they were chronic dieters, all of the women were hopeful that their resolve would result in successful slenderizing. True, the veteran dieters were somewhat more down-in-the-dumps at the beginning, compared with the dieting novices. The former group might have had a more realistic estimation of the slim chances of success, the researchers write. Plus, they weren’t exactly feeling great about themselves.
Like eternal optimists, though, the veterans also were more likely to think that dieting could change their lives for the better. This time, they hoped against hope that they would succeed.
But alas, just four weeks after making resolutions at the beginning of the study, none of the participants were still dieting.
They were last seen crying into their Rocky Road ice cream while watching Monica and Fergie commercials.
SAD ALL SEASON ’ROUND
For some unfortunate individuals, April showers tumble from the eyes as well as the skies.
They suffer from SAD. That’s Seasonal Affective Disorder, for the uninformed. Although winter is the most common season of their miscontent, many SAD folks slide back into it come springtime, according to researchers from Aker Hospital in Oslo, Norway (bet you didn’t think they even had spring in Oslo, right?).
In a study of 84 patients, nearly four of every 10 SAD women and more than one of every 10 SAD men reported their wintertime depression frequently popped up again in the spring, the scientists write in the most recent issue of Psychopathology. Some patients felt even more depressed than they had during winter’s darker days, the researchers found, so it’s not clear whether sitting in front of bright lights, which helps treat winter SAD, would cheer them up.
We’ve tried putting megawatt bulbs in our lamps, but we’re still feeling pretty sad ourselves. You see, after more than two years and more than 100 columns, Small Doses (a k a Rubin Report), has come to an end, at least on ABCNEWS.com. For now, we’re homeless, but we hope to find a niche on another Web site in the near future.
So, with apologies to Horton Hears a Who author Dr. Seuss (who, by the way, is cited three times in the medical literature):
From fetishes to flatulence,
from marijuana to moonshine,
We have covered all of it,
no matter how asinine.
Rita Rubin has covered medicine for more than 20 years, currently as a reporter for USA Today. Her stories have also appeared in U.S. News & World Report, the Dallas Morning News and other newspapers and magazines. |
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According to a recent study, psychologists found the higher your expectations — that is, the more times you’ve lost weight in the past — the harder you fall.
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