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iQuestions Faculty, Dr. David Eckman 
 
 
Question: 
 
What are some of the false assumptions or fantasies preventing weight 
loss? 
 
Answer: 
 
There’s a whole host of false assumptions that keep people from losing 
weight. A very simple one is that consistent exercise doesn’t help. 
 
What happens is, a person may exercise for two days, they don’t lose 
any pounds, they might even gain a pound or two, and immediately 
they say to themselves, “Consistent exercise doesn’t help.” It is an 
absolute, statistical reality: you burn up calories, calories go away. 
 
Or there’s another false assumption, that being overweight or grossly 
overweight does not affect health. It surprises me, the number of 
young college women that I’ve talked to about the fact that they’re 
significantly overweight, and how very few of them connect their 
present physical health with the weight that they are carrying. They 
have the implicit assumption that that will not affect their long-term 
health.  
 
It will affect their heart, their lungs, their liver, it will affect their entire 
physiological wellbeing. There are a lot of false beliefs out there, and 
those things are dangerous. They need to be challenged. They’re part 
of the package that comes with addressing weight loss and dealing 
with overeating.  
 
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