When psychology trumps anti-obesity drugs

Patients who fail to lose weight while taking anti-obesity drugs do so because of their beliefs about themselves and about the difficulty of losing weight.

That is the conclusion of research presented by Dr Amelia Hollywood from the University of Surrey at the Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society’s Division of Health Psychology. The conference is being held at the Holiday Inn in Liverpool from 5-7 September 2012.

Dr Hollywood interviewed 10 people, who had put on weight over the 18 months after they were prescribed the weight-loss medication Orlistat, about their experiences.

Dr Hollywood and her colleague Dr Jane Ogden found that the women attributed their failure to lose weight to the mechanics of the drug. They highlighted the barriers to weight loss and talked about other weight-loss methods that had not worked for them.

Overall, the researchers found, these people saw their failure to lose weight as an inevitable part of their identity. They felt that it reflected their self-fulfilling belief that they would be perpetual dieters.