New studies Overweight people misjudge distances

Incorrect perception: Obese overestimate distances
Most people who are too fat know that doing sports could help them lose extra pounds. But the regular workouts seem so hard to fall. One problem could be the wrong perception: Scientists found that obese people overestimate distances.
More exercise for the overweight
People who are overweight or obese are usually advised by healthcare professionals not just to switch to a healthier diet, but also to exercise regularly. However, it often seems difficult for some of the fat people to get into the sport or endure it long enough. One explanation could be that they often have a wrong perception of distances. This was the result of a new investigation in the USA.

Overweight people consider distances differently. Picture: Picture-Factory - fotolia

Wrong distance perception
Only recently was a study published by German scientists showing that stress influences our spatial perception. Stressed people can therefore perceive complex landscape scenarios only to a limited extent. Even people with a strong overweight have problems with their perception. They tend to distance, apparently to exaggerations. This was the result of a research team led by psychologist Jessica Witt of Colorado State University. The scientists recently published their study in the journal "Acta Psychologica".

Exercise physical challenges differently
According to the researchers, obesity affects the brain so that it perceives physical challenges such as sports differently than it does with people with ideal masses. According to the internet portal "www.lessentiel.lu", a total of 66 subjects were asked during the investigation to estimate the removal of various objects. Half of the subjects weighed around 146 kilograms and the other weighed around 57 kilograms. The scientists found that the heavy subjects perceived the objects on average twice as far away as the lightweight participants.

Sport alone is not enough to lose weight
According to Witt this might explain why the fight against the kilos is so hard for overweight people. Thickness simply overestimates what they do. In order to get rid of so-called hip gold movement is not enough anyway. According to health experts, sport alone does not help against overweight. More important is the diet. Especially the type and amount of calories we eat is due to many increasing. Patients are usually advised not only to eat less, but above all to reduce their fat and sugar intake. (Ad)