Can You Use the Force to Lose Weight?
Weight loss tip: Think you are thin! : Scientists, body mass index, weight : IBNLive.com : CNN-IBN
Researchers made the discovery after monitoring 84 women hotel housekeepers who cleaned about 15 rooms a day.Even though they exceeded daily recommended exercise levels to stay in trim they were “less healthy” than expected.
Half of them were told that their work gave them enough exercise to lose weight and keep fit.
They were told how many calories their daily tasks burned off every 15 minutes such as 60 for cleaning, 50 for vacuuming and 40 for changing beds.
The rest were not told about the health benefits of their work. Four weeks on the first group had lost 2lb on average, cut body fat by about 0.5 per cent, body-mass index by 0.35 and blood pressure by 10 per cent.
The others saw no improvement in health or physique. All the women were aged 18 to 55.
So if you think you’ll lose weight, you will? Sounds like shoddy science to me. Could telling them that their work was exercise possibly have motivated them to eat less or get a little additional exercise after work compared with their peers? The article is silent on that, but if you are going to claim the weight loss is due to the thought process it seems you would want to control for such factors.