HOW TO DELAY GRATIFICATION WHEN YOU’RE TRYING TO LOSE WEIGHT

A new study contradicts previous research that suggests overweight people have a harder time delaying gratification compared to people who are more lean.
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Published in the journal Appetite, the findings show that behavioral interventions designed to improve delay of gratification can work just as well with overweight and obese women as with lean women.
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In a study published earlier this year, Epstein and his colleagues demonstrated that overweight and obese women ate less when they were imagining themselves in enjoyable future scenarios and reduced their inclination to engage in delay discounting.

“In the current study, we show that episodic future thinking works equally well in overweight and obese women in comparison to lean women,” says Epstein. “That’s important since several studies have shown that overweight/obese women are more impulsive.

“The fact that projecting oneself into the future and imagining future scenarios works equally well for lean and overweight/obese women is important for designing interventions to reduce impulsive decision making in women who need to lose weight.”