Lose the Memory, Lose the Weight
False memories may help in avoiding fattening foods.
By Victoria Stern, PsychologyToday.com
If your mother told you raw oysters had turned your stomach a few years back, you might think twice about partaking in them again. But what if she was lying? And what if she told the same tale but replaced oysters with a fattening treat like ice cream? Evidence from two studies shows that generating false memories might be one way to diet.
Researchers at the University of St. Andrews in the United Kingdom and at the University of Windsor in Canada each found that subjects who were told that a particular food had made them sick years earlier not only believed the made-up events but also stopped craving the food. Researchers already knew that generating false memories can alter a person's beliefs, but these studies are the first to show that the practice can change behavior as well.
"Although it's not ethical to create false memories in people, making an association between eating a fattening food and getting ill may be beneficial," says Elke Geraerts, a psychologist from St. Andrews and lead author on one of the studies. "People may avoid those foods in the future."



I think lying is what nade us fat to begin with-lying to ourselves about how much we eat, the calorie content of what we eat, and other such self-destructive lies and now a learned person is suggesting we lie to ourselves to solve a problem that our lies to ourselves caused in the first place. Brillant!!

Right.