From: Herald Sun

September 26, 2009 12:00AM

BEING too optimistic may prevent overweight people losing weight.

New research has found looking on the bright side of life can be a barrier to shedding unwanted kilos, while negative emotions can help weight loss because it means people care more about their condition and focus on the task at hand.

After psychologically profiling and counselling 101 obese patients, Japanese researchers found optimism caused carelessness in sticking to diets, led people to not care about diseases and made them more liable to give in to temptation.

Hitomi Saito, of Doshisha University, said that after a six-month program of counselling, and nutrition and exercise therapy, patients who were able to improve their self-awareness were more likely to lose weight.

Indeed, the scientists report that those with high levels of optimism before the program began were less likely to lose weight.