The goal to lose weight is the most popular New Year's resolution, as more than two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese¹, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 

However, before launching into a new diet, caveat² emptor, as some new findings by University of California - Santa Barbara researchers suggest many directives may be counterproductive.

 

In a new study, psychology³ professor Dr. Brenda Major discovered that the weight-stigmatizing messages presented by the media -- the ones that characterize overweight individuals as lazy, weak-willed, self-indulgent（任性的） and contributing to rising health care costs -- may be tipping the scales in the wrong direction.

 

Major believes that some of the approaches may actually lead to weight gain.

 

According to the research, which appears in the online issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, when women who perceive themselves as overweight are exposed to weight-stigmatizing news articles, they are less able to control their eating afterward⁵ than are women who don't perceive themselves that way.

 

Using young women as their test subjects (because, as a group, young women are particularly vulnerable to issues related to weight stigma⁴), the researchers asked half of the participants to read a mock article from The New York Times titled "Lose Weight or Lose Your Job."

 

The other half read a similar article, "Quit Smoking or Lose Your Job."

 

"The first article described all real things we found in the media about different kinds of stigma that overweight people are facing in the workplace," said Major.

 

After reading the articles, participants were asked to describe them via video camera to someone who was unfamiliar⁶ with the content.

 

A 10-minute break followed, during which the women were ushered⁷ into another room and asked to wait for the next phase of the experiment to begin.

 

Available to them in that room were a variety of snacks, including M&Ms and Goldfish crackers⁸.

 

The snacks were weighed beforehand, and every participant was offered the same type and amount, and remained in the room for the same amount of time.

 

In the final phase of the experiment, each participant was asked a number of questions, including how capable she felt of exercising control over her food intake⁹.

 

"People might think the overweight women who read the weight-stigmatizing article would eat less than the others," Major said, "but they didn't.

 

"As we predicted, they actually ate significantly more than the other women in the study. And afterward, they acknowledged feeling significantly less able to control their eating.

 

Major said many people who are overweight feel helpless to control their weight. "Our study illustrates¹⁰ that articles and ads about the obesity¹¹ epidemic¹² that imply it's just a matter of self-control can make overweight people feel even more helpless and out of control of their eating," she said.

 

Major's current study builds on her earlier research demonstrating the negative effects overweight women experience when they are put into situations in which they fear being stigmatized¹³ because of their weight.

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