According to experts, many people don't address the multiple factors leading to obesity. Unhealthy eating patterns and a sedentary lifestyle are well-known causal factors, but we often ignore the crucial role that psychological factors play in obesity.  In this article GKA have researched some psychological factors that you may need to look at in your families lives.

Comfort food
"Overeating may be part of our coping mechanisms," says Dr Clara Gerhard, obesity expert and associate professor in Family Studies at Samford University in America.

We can try to handle stress through eating. It doesn't help us to be more successful in handling it, but it does provide comfort. This form of stress relief is often followed by guilt and as a result, a vicious cycle develops.

Family matters
Graham Alexander, a clinical psychologist who specialises in treating eating disorders agrees. In his experience, the obese often come from families with a history of addiction and which are characterised by poor conflict resolution and over- or under involvement. In these families, people typically overcompensate by overeating.

Sexual abuse
Sexual abuse is a common trigger of all eating disorders, including binge eating. "For such people, food fills the empty hole left by abuse. Fat provides a symbolic protective layer against exposure of their sexuality. Of course this is illusionary, because no-one can be protected from others," says Alexander.

The long walk to health
Permanent weight loss is extremely difficult because people are programmed to eat for survival and the satisfaction of eating is immediate. The food industry can be a friend or an enemy, depending on whether we are able to make correct choices.

Diets don't work
"Diets don't work - 90% of people fail to maintain weight loss. People might have the best intentions but if they follow a restrictive diet, they are likely to deteriorate because such a diet will make them feel deprived and will only lead to further binge eating and further weight gain," says Alexander.

Successful weight-loss
Experts therefore suggest that, for weight-loss to be successful and long-term, it should be approached from several angles - dietary, exercise as well as psychological support.

With regards to diet, we feel that the emphasis should rather be on adopting a healthy lifestyle and achieving a sense of overall well-being than on weight-loss itself. Focusing on weight-loss alone is dangerous as it reinforces further pathological eating.

Parents should take responsibility
Parents are the most powerful role models for their children.
The dieting mother becomes the first role model for her daughter to
become over-focused on food (later backed up by the peer group); the
family that never shares a communal meal teaches us disengagement. If we allow our children to be bombarded with food advertisements on TV, and we expose them to the seduction of fast and processed foods, overdosing them on sugar, while teaching them the coach potato lifestyle, we set them up with life habits that can be a very heavy load to carry in adulthood (both literally and figuratively).

Get Kids Active suggests that we invest in the health of our children, as well as our own health by thinking about food and exercise not in terms of a quick fix weight-loss regimen, but in terms of a commitment towards maintaining a healthy lifestyle.  

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