Originally published August 6 2005
Weight loss possibly aided by suggestion
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A new study has shown that you can convince a person that they don't like certain foods full of calories just by telling them so.
It might be possible to talk a dieter into hating strawberry ice cream, but it may be impossible to help people lose their cravings for more popular snacks such as chocolate chip cookies, researchers said on Monday.
A study on the power of suggestion found that people could be falsely persuaded that they had once become sick eating strawberry ice cream as children -- and they later said they would avoid this food.
"We believe this new finding may have significant implications for dieting," said Loftus, a distinguished professor who specializes in memory and suggestion at the University of California Irvine.
Loftus and colleagues at the University of Washington and Kwantlen University College in Washington experimented with more than 200 volunteers, mostly students, who did not know the goal of the study.
They used what is called a false feedback technique.
"You gather data from the subject," Loftus said in a telephone interview.
"It just so happens that these were data about personality and childhood experiences about food.
You tell them you fed the data into a very smart computer and it comes out with profile about childhood experiences with food."
In fact, the researchers crafted a printout with predictable associations, such as a childhood dislike of spinach and love of pizza.
"Then you add in (that) you got sick on strawberry ice cream.
You want them to think about the getting sick aspect of the experience," Loftus said.
Then the volunteers were asked to describe what may have happened -- for instance, eating strawberry ice cream at a birthday party and becoming ill.
"Most of our subjects came up with a belief that this had happened as opposed to developing an actual memory," Loftus said.
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