More than half of Americans
say they'd rather lose their jobs than get fat.
Fifty-eight percent of women
and 54% of men say they'd rather be unemployed
than gain 75 pounds. And 63% of women and 55%
of men say they'd rather be poor with no extra
pounds to lose than rich and substantially overweight.
These are the findings of
a poll of 1,007 people for Fitness magazine.
It will appear in the June issue.
"People believe it's a monumental
struggle to lose 75 pounds," says Liz Vaccariello,
executive editor of Fitness.
"They think they can find
a job much easier than the commitment it takes
to lose weight, which means giving up food, which
people love, and moving more, which many people
don't love," Vaccariello says. "In reality, small
daily changes can make weight loss a much less
daunting effort."
Still, to drop that much
weight in a healthy way, you'd have to work at
it for a year or more, says Bonnie Taub-Dix, a
registered dietitian in New York City. "People
would rather pick up the want ads than pick up
extra pounds."
Other findings:
• 75% of men and 80%
of women say they wouldn't give up 20 intelligence-quotient
points to gain the perfect body.
• But 17% of men and
11% of women would at least consider the trade-off,
and of those, 7% of men and 5% of women say they'd
do it in an instant.
• 27% of women say
they'd rather get their wisdom teeth pulled than
shop for swimsuits.
• 36% of women and
48% of men say their abdominal muscles are the
body part they would most like to change.
• 42% of men and 27%
of women say their arms are the body part they
are happiest with. And 24% of women and 12% of
men are happy with their backsides.
• 96% of men and 87%
of women say they wouldn't skip a reunion because
of their weight.
• 94% of men and 87%
of women would still go out on a date even if
they felt fat.
• 24% of women say
they've avoided sex because they felt uncomfortable
with their body.
Taub-Dix says lots of women
tell her that they avoid sex because they don't
like their bodies, and that they feel sexier when
they lose weight.
She tells her clients who
are trying to lose weight before swimsuit season
that they should wear their bathing suits under
their clothes so they're constantly reminded to
stick with their healthy eating and exercise plan.
But Taub-Dix is skeptical
of the finding about reunions. "People are often
embarrassed by how they look now compared to how
they used to look in high school," she says.
Still, "it is comforting
to know that most people would choose brains over
being thin," says Dawn Jackson Blatner, a registered
dietitian at Northwestern Memorial Wellness Institute
in Chicago.
The poll has a margin of
error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
