Re: Persuading People to Improve Their Health.

[Guest guest]

Hello Iris and ALL:

People want to hear happy news. So here is some happy news.

Good dietary change once achieved is highly successful.

People report that they are very happy. And that their is

no inconvenience in any area (but one -- see below).

Even a large percentage of people who are 60 years old are

capable of achieving major favorable dietary changes over

an extended period (4 years in the study below).

Here is some proof:

In the ls of Behavioral Medicine (the official peer-reviewed

publication of The Society of Behavioral Medicine), an Aug 2001

report on dietary change sponsored by the NCI (National Cancer

Institute) reported:

" " All the participants in this study had experienced a polyp in

their large bowel; 194 people agreed to change their diets to

prevent a recurrence, and 200 people continued their typical

eating regimen. On average, study participants were about

60 years old when the study began in 1993.

Contrary to common perceptions of low-fat diets, participants

did not report any detrimental effects of the eating plan on

taste, cost, the convenience of shopping for and preparing foods,

their overall health assessment, and general well-being or

satisfaction with life. " "

There were many positive changes reported, esp in self-perception.

http://www.hbns.org/newsrelease/few8-01-01.cfm

The one major difficulty in the dietary change was -- guess ??

If you guess problems away from home and eating with others,

then you are correct!

" " The only hint of difficulty was in maintaining the diet while

eating away from home, with those eating the healthier diet

reporting more problems when eating with others than did people

who did not modify their diets. " "

-- Warren

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On 15 Oct 2003, Iris wrote:

Given the current obesity and diabetes statistics, it is fairly easy

to see how a physician who is concerned about these issues (and of

course many of them need to take the " heal thyself " route first) will

believe that almost no one is willing to take any serious steps to

improve their health.

Those on this list are of course the exception, but we are a very

small minority.

Iris