The Futility of Resolving to Stop Overeating

Have you resolved to drop a few pounds in the new year? If so, you're certainly not alone. But if you're having trouble controlling the amount you eat, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has some new research that might be at least a little bit comforting.

In a study entitled "Eating as an Automatic Behavior," Dr. Deborah Cohen of the RAND Corp. and Dr. Thomas A. Farley of Tulane University's School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine explore the question of why America's obesity epidemic is growing at the same time that being overweight is more and more socially taboo. Here's the gist of their explanation:

National efforts to treat and prevent obesity depend to a large degree on educating people to regulate their food intake through such means as publicizing general guidelines on nutrition, promoting tailored diets, and labeling foods with nutrition information. The continued growth of the epidemic despite the employment of these techniques should make people question the assumptions underlying them. The fundamental assumption is that, given the right information and motivation, people can successfully reduce their food intake to match their caloric expenditure over the long term. This assumption in turn implies that eating is a conscious act. An alternative assumption is that eating is a behavior controlled by the environment rather than by the individual.