"Go and find
the people that you know
Show them
all your good parts
Leave town
when the bad ones start to show"
I love Linda Wells. Whether you read beauty magazines or
not, you should open Allure (one of
my favorites) and read Linda Well’s Letter From the Editor in each issue. This
month, Linda outed herself as a liar in “Pants on Fire. She admitted “for
years, I lied to my sons about my age- and not by a little.” She explained that
her son was writing a composition for school and asked how old she was, she
said 36 and remained “36” for years. And she knows what you’re thinking and said “what mother lies to her children? Me, clearly,
and without missing a beat.” Before you
judge, chances are there’s something you flub, fib or let’s face it totally lie
about.
I remember when I was a new RD working in research. I had
someone I was counseling as they took part in a study. I poured over this
participant’s food journal and couldn’t for the life of me understand why she
wasn’t losing weight. I went into my friend Linda’s office for advice. “C’mon
Lauren she’s lying on her food journal or as they say under reporting.” I was
stunned, it hadn’t occurred to me that someone wouldn’t be completely
forthcoming about his or her food, this was research after all. Years later, I now know there’s “under reporting”
when it comes to weight as well. When I ask most new clients how much they
weigh, it’s always less that what the scale ends up saying. I know, I know some of it is clothes, some
food consumed that day and some of it is not wanting to weigh what we do, so we lie.
A study in Ethnicity and Disease found women misrepresent their
weight more than men and white women even more so than women of other
ethnicities. The authors concluded “this
may be because a fixation on thinness is more common in whites” Women fib about their weight ever to those closest to them, to their partners, best friends and even their mothers. A UK study
found the average weight lie to be 9 pounds.I always thought of myself as more of a height liar. I placed myself at 5’2” but did not know that
for sure (more on that later). Height lies are more common among men though the
lie is usually an inch or less. There’s only so much leeway there. Researchers
from the University of Massachusetts several years ago found that 60 percent of
people lie at least once during a 10-minute
conversation. So if everyone is telling untruths about their age, weight
and height, doesn’t it level the playing field? It becomes like vanity sizing.
If all the 8’s become 6’s, does it really count?
So why tell the truth? One interesting study split
participants into two groups. One was told to tell fewer lies and the other
encouraged to lie. Polygraphs were used for verification. “When participants told fewer white lies than
they did in previous weeks,, they reported four fewer mental health complaints
(such as stress or sadness) and about three fewer physical health complaints
(like sore throats and headaches).” And I loved this from Dr Alex Lickerman in
Psychology Today “telling the truth motivates us to strive to become all
the good things lying helps us pretend we already are”
At the end of the Allure article, Wells says “Today is my
birthday. I’m around 50…or 54” I thought I should face the truth, or in my case
the tape measure. I had a feeling I was
½ inch to an inch off...and I was. I’m not 5’2” I’m 5’3”! While I’m not sure
what it says about me that I lied in the wrong direction, I hope it’s proof
that sometimes the truth isn’t that scary, try it.
Are you more of an age, weight or height
fraud? Why do you think we lie about these things? And if you want to stop
pretending, spill your actual height, weight or age in the comments (you only
get the mental/physical benefit if you previously lied about it).
