After a lengthy research career studying obesity and its treatment, Dr. Kelly Brownell concludes:"Dieting seldom results in significant or lasting weight loss, and the majority of individuals who begin dieting will experience dietary failure. A common reaction to diet failure is to blame the failure on not having had enough will-power, with a simultaneous commitment to starting the diet again, but this time promising to try harder."

The medical model of overeating and its treatment, despite heroic efforts and extreme methods - including fasting, medication, and residential treatment - produces disappointing long-term outcome. This approach places the overeater in the patient role - the recipient of treatment who is passive, and turns over responsibility for the course of the disorder to an external agent. The treatment provider is the active member of the team and plays the role of the competent adult . The patient's job is to comply with - and not rebel against - the treatment provider's rules, [diet, program, etc.] . Treatment failures indicate lack of compliance and hence confirms the patient's intrinsic incompetence, irresponsibility, or disease.

Because most dieters eventually fail to control their weight, most have come to believe that for them self-management is futile, and hence must depend on an external source of control to achieve their goal. Unfortunately for them, changes achieved through external agency last only as long as that agent is effective, and so the vast majority of those who lose weight through such methods weigh more a year later than when they began the program. However, for individuals with a particular set of attributes there is a viable path to good long-term outcome.

In contrast to diets, programs, and group treatment, the self-directed approach described here requires that the individual accept responsibility to develop his or her own plan, which includes how to get the self to react as intended to stress and temptation. This approach is best matched with individuals who are self-directed in other areas of their lives, have good problem solving skills, and an internal locus of control.

Below are some self-tests which you may take to satisfy your curiosity, or to share with our staff for feedback and consultation. The PARTS' Mood Screen is a brief measure of depression and anxiety; the Locus Of Control Assessment Scale [LOCAS] is an opportunity for you to review your approach to solving this problem; the Trap Detector will help you identify the traps that have held you back to this point; the final link, Begin the Path, describes some Advanced Cognitive Strategies that you may find helpful to manage the inevitable crises that await you.

PARTS' Mood Screen Brief self-evaluation: Signs and symptoms of depression & anxiety	Do I have a problem? Is this a serious problem for me and worthy of my attention?	Trap Detector What is the nature of my addictive trap?	Advanced Cognitive Skills Skip the self-evaluation for now and go to the next step of the passage

The author of this web, Bill Dubin, is a licensed psychologist who has accompanied many individuals through the passage from dependence on external agency to self-determination, and he says: "Completing this passage does not guarantee weight loss, but those with whom it is well matched will develop the procedural skills that permit good long-term outcome."