Our age, our salary, even our kids - the most common things we fib about, and why we do it (12 Photos)
Arricca Elin SanSone on Mar 24, 2011 at 5:08PM
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In the survey of iVillage readers, about one in five women said she'd lied to a doctor about something. One common fib: how much we're exercising. That's one we tell ourselves, our friends, and, yes, sometimes our doctors too, say experts. (In fact, how much we work out was the second most popular thing women in the survey reported lying about.)
What’s behind the lie: “It’s human nature to want approval,” says Robert Feldman, Ph.D., dean of the college of social and behavioral sciences and professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts. “The irony [when you lie to a doctor] is that you’re paying for someone to give you an expert opinion, but you’re disguising reality. Your doctor would be better able to treat and diagnose you if she knew the truth.”
