Why we must stop ignoring the psychology of weight loss: Alisa Anokhina at TEDxUCL

Alisa is a doctoral researcher in clinical health psychology at UCL who has taught and given talks across the country. Her work covers new areas of eating disorder research at the intersection of the conscious and the unconscious. Seven years of experience in journalism has lent itself to an interest in public engagement and the bridging of the gap between the scientific community and the public at large. Her core interest is in understanding how we eat, what we believe about weight loss, and how a ‘diet’ is just ‘die’ with a T.

Talk: Why we must stop ignoring the psychology of weight loss
“Losing weight is really easy; you eat less and exercise more!” But this is simply not true, as many of us may know, most diets only result in temporary weight loss. We often ignore the psychology of eating and internalising wrong beliefs cause us to fail in losing weight. The problem should be tackled as a psychological one, unrealistic expectations should be abandoned and the stigma attributed to weight loss needs to be abandoned. Contrary to suspicious adds and promises of weight loss without effort, the psychology of eating really can give us important insights.

About TEDx
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)