Traditional and Biobehavioral Information in Dieting: The Anticipated Effects of Christian Weight Loss Literature

Abstract

The study was designed to evaluate the effects of traditional versus biobehavioral information about dieting among individuals in early stages of dieting behavior. Forty-eight participants were presented with a message emphasizing the traditional information that weight loss is only a matter of will-power. Forty-eight participants were presented with biobehavioral information that explained why dieting is often ineffective and that other approaches could be used constructively to achieve weight loss. Twenty-four participants received a control message that was unrelated to weight loss. The biobehavioral message was expected to result in decreases in self-blaming attributions. This was true only for those participants that had been overweight since childhood Six current books on weight loss written from a Christian perspective are reviewed based upon the results of the study.