A team led by psychologist Elizabeth Loftus is trying a new method to lose the bulge 1 in 3 Americans are carrying around their waist: Lying.
The method tries to persuade people to avoid fattening foods by implanting an unpleasant childhood memory about the food, even though the event never happened.
The study's findings were released Tuesday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Deliberately implanting memories also "raises profound ethical questions," Stephen Behnke, director of the ethics office of the American Psychological Association tells the Witchita Eagle News.
"Say, for example, we could change a person's belief about their entire childhood," he says. "Would doing so be ethical?"
Dr. Loftus admits there are ethical issues surrounding the dieting method, but believe the battle against obesity far outweighs the ethics of lying about a food memory.
"People kind of cringe at the idea that anyone would suggest that they lie to their children," she says, "but they do it all the time when they tell them Santa Claus exists and so does the Tooth Fairy."
