London, Sep 25 (Inditop.com) Can personality trait be a factor in weight loss? A new study says yes.
Stating an example, the study says being too optimistic could derail weight loss efforts.
Hitomi Saito from Doshisha University, Japan, worked with a team of researchers to profile 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 who were able to improve their self-awareness through counselling were more likely to lose weight than those who were not.
Optimism and self-orientation characteristics improved for most patients after the six-month programme, although this was not related to weight loss.
In fact, patients who started the programme with high levels of self-orientation and 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, says a BioMed release.
“It is important to enhance patients’ self-effectiveness and self-control in order to reduce psychological stress and to maintain the weight loss,” state the study authors.
The study was published in open access journal BioPsychoSocial Medicine.
