The misperception of body's fat accumulation process; a experimental study

摘要

Walking in the city everyday, we observe many people with apparent fat amassed on their bodies. When such people are conversed about it, they generally give two answers: First that it is due to the lack of exercise; second, the lack of diet control.Similarly, we come across many skinny people who often claim that their body structure is such that they cannot gain fat.From these replies, it seems as if people misperceive the dynamics1 of fat accumulation process in their bodies. The purpose of the present study is to find out whether this observation is true. Using a simple but concise questionnaire the subjects, within the range of 19 to 50 years of age, were asked to maintain the current amount of fat in their bodies for a period of six months. The data obtained were fed into a System Dynamics model whose simulations clearly indicated that people generally ended up either gaining or losing much of fat. Further, the statistical tests applied on the data nullified the null hypothesis and supported the alternative.This pre-experimental study serves as the basis for a full fledge experiment which would take into account the question of how to overcome the misperception on hand.