Is your personality sabotaging your diet? - Eat Right

Most diets don't work long-term. Figuring out why might be the key to keeping weight off. That is the premise of Dr. Kushner's Personality Type Diet (St. Martin's Press 2003). After years of working with dieters, Robert F. Kushner, M.D., medical director of the Wellness Institute at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, says the common causes of diet failure can be traced to personality types that are based on eating, exercising and coping patterns. The seven eating "personalities" are the Unguided Grazer, the Hearty Portioner, the Nighttime Nibbler, the Convenient Consumer, the Fruitless Feaster, the Mindless Muncher and the Deprived Sneaker. You take a personality test, then follow the diet guidelines tailored to the result.

The guidelines are sound, if not terribly innovative. For example, the Fruitless Feaster -- a meat-and-potatoes eater -- is given tips for incorporating more produce into her daily menu, while the Mindless Muncher, who eats to beat boredom, should (among other things) think before she eats. However, Kushner recommends that everyone follow the basic steps necessary to weightloss success, such as keeping a journal, setting realistic goals and learning healthy portion sizes.

You also determine your exercise and coping personalities. Some of the types profiled: Hate-to-Move Struggler, Inexperienced Novice, All-or-Nothing Doer, Emotional Stuffer, Persistent Procrastinator, Unrealistic Achiever. Here, the guidelines and suggestions are just as basic, yet tried-and-true. The book oversimplifies the complex issue of weight loss, but it's readable and, most important, accurate -- more than you can say for most diet books.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Weider Publications
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group