JOYCE O’DONNELL
“When people want to be thinner, they work out more,” says Riley Pryor, M.D., a University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston–educated gynecologist and the physician who examined Kim Kardashian’s post-baby body and opined that her weight loss must be the result of good genes and not weight loss surgery. “They are probably making decisions that are truly inaccurate, but they’re more likely to think the elliptical is going to help them than to believe a conventional diet.”
NUTRITIONIST AND JUDITH E. TAYLOR
Social media may play a role in eating habits and particularly diets’ failure to meet goal amounts.“We’re inundated with messages,” says Kaila Ley-Hans, M.D., associate clinical professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. “So people adjust their calories so they don’t gain weight, [or] they eat more so they don’t gain weight.” This unrealistic outlook may ultimately cause people to skip meals or eat too much carbohydrate, which can affect weight loss. People who eat a lot tend to also have more trouble sustaining weight loss because of anxiety and depression. In the long run, although the self-tracking app Lose It! has been shown to help people lose weight, it may not be sustainable, reports author Steven Gold from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
“Eat Your Heart Out” was written by columnist and health coach Joy Campbell for Washingtonian.