Letter to the Editor
Newsweek
Letter to the EditorPublished in Newsweek
February 3, 2003
Now that those New Year's resolutions get really hard to enact, Dr. Michael Craig Miller ("A Little More Willpower Can Change Your Life") does readers a service by placing behavior change in the realm of the doable, not just the theoretical. The reality is that people try and fail several times before they successfully change habits like smoking. Actually, it's helpful to think of those failed attempts as practice. And working at some changes is a lifetime experience; in the case of eating and exercising, figuring out how to maintain healthy behaviors over a life span can be more important than finding ways to stop "bad" behavior.
Ira R. Allen
Vice President, Center for the Advancement of Health
Washington, D.C.
