Weight Loss and Positive Ego State

Study Finds Losing Weight is Easier for Those with Low Ego Strength

Having a positive ego or self-esteem is usually considered a very desirable attribute. But a study of weight loss among obese Japanese patients found the unexpected.

Having a positive ego or self-esteem is usually considered a very desirable thing to have. It is much easier to go through life thinking well of yourself and your skills than thinking poorly of yourself. A study of weight loss among obese Japanese patients found, however, that patients with low ego states lost more weight than patients with higher ego states. These results run counter to the assumptions of most observers.

Japanese researchers followed a group of about one hundred fifty obese patients as they went through the latest stage of their extensive research on weight loss. The researchers had previously found that psychological counseling often resulted in greater weight loss. This positive result made them curious about personality types. They wondered whether different types of personalities benefited more from psychological counseling. The question they asked is whether people with positive self-esteem and ego states benefited more from counseling and therefore reduced weight more than people with lower ego states and lower self-esteem.

The ages of the study subjects ranged from teen years (about 15 years of age) to middle age (about 45). The study started with about three times more women than men. All subjects were asked to go through a six month program that included both weight training and behavioral psychological counseling. Unlike many other forms of counseling, behavioral psychological counseling is usually very focused on the issue at hand, in this case the issue of weight loss. Behavioral counseling does not usually explore issues from the patient's past, such as child-rearing methods and the so-called Oedipus complex.

Self-Esteem and Weight Loss

All study subjects were given an established Japanese personality test to determine the state of their ego strength. Once test scores were known, it was easy to divide the study subjects into a high scoring group and a low scoring group.

When the study was completed about a third of the subjects had dropped out. In their report the researchers do not specify the characteristics of those who remained in the study versus those who dropped out.

The results of the study were quite unexpected. What was found was that people who scored higher on the psychological test of ego strength lost less weight than the low scorers. In other words, despite behavioral counseling to the contrary, people who thought well of themselves lost significantly less weight than people who had weaker self-esteem. It's as if to say people who like themselves like themselves even when they are obese, and they don't seem to care to change their obesity.

Ego and Autonomy in this Japanese Obesity Study

To explain their unexpected results, the researchers claimed the study subjects differed in their sense of autonomy. The obese subjects with higher ego strength desired to be more autonomous. Or, to put it plainly, they wanted to do it themselves. There might have been something about the behavioral counseling which offended the sense of autonomy of the obese subjects with a strong ego and strong sense of self-esteem. They might have resented the subtle or unsubtle pushing the counselors did during the counseling. The subjects might have been saying, in essence, "Don't push me, I'll [lose weight] myself when I want to do it, not when you want me to do it."

On the other hand, the implication of this interpretation by the researchers of their results is that people with lower ego strength or low self-esteem can be manipulated more easily by means of behavioral counseling. The subjects with lower self-esteem might have allowed the psychological counselors to convince them they should lose weight because they held these "experts" in higher esteem than they held their own judgment.

The implication of these study results for other people is that counseling may be a good thing in general, but the results achieved can vary depending upon the subject's mental state. If a person with a strong will and sense of purpose sets out to defeat counseling, that person can defeat counseling to some degree.