I was reading a recent article about magical thinking and whether it helps people lose weight. Magical thinking is different from wishful thinking, which may be described as blind hope. It is more about how magical beliefs can influence your expectations. It serves as a meaningful concept for people, like consumers, to use to understand their daily life.
For example, if I believed that there were outside forces that play a role in the outcome of a certain event, then that could actually give me hope and help me cope with whatever challenge I have in life. That is magical thinking. And it can play a very strong role in weight loss.
It can be the one thing that makes the impossible seem possible. We have all engaged in this sort of thinking from time to time. We have hoped that if we make that one simple change, then our bodies would eventually transform into what we desire. We have visualized ourselves a particular way and believed in that vision as a possibility.
Magical thinking is everywhere today. It is in advertising and consumer discourse. Products are constantly portrayed as being able to transform something about you, perhaps your entire life. And consumers’ subsequent suspension of disbelief certainly helps the economic world go ’round.
As health club professionals, we offer a product too and our members are the consumers. However, it is our responsibility to give our members the tools they need to be healthy and well. We offer a vision to our members of how to achieve their fitness goals, and we are there to help them not just imagine the possibilities, but implement them.
This expansion of possibilities, however imagined, gives some dieters the resolve to stick with the more mundane lifestyle changes that successful weight loss requires. Magical thinking is a way for them to sustain their hope and therefore sustain their dieting and exercising.
Needless to say, we need to draw a distinction between magical thinking and scientific thinking. Certainly, we employ a scientific approach to fitness and try to encourage our clients to use all the well-researched methods at our disposal. But maybe success does not lie in the ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy, magic or science, but in taking a different approach toward the possible.
If allowing certain blends of reality and fantasy helps people cope with the stresses and stigma of being overweight and being on a diet, things over which they may have limited control, I’m all for it.
I like the idea of helping our members and clients visualize their success and imagine all the possible avenues to reach their goals. I like having a little magic in my life, too.
Judith Samuels, M.A. is a certified nutrition and wellness consultant and master personal trainer at Sport&Health Clubs in the Washington D.C. Metro Area. She can be reached via e-mail at judi@judisamuels.com.
