Obesity is a condition in which the natural energy reserve, stored in the fatty tissue of humans and other mammals, is increased to a point where it is associated with certain health conditions or increased mortality.
Obesity is both an individual clinical condition and is increasingly viewed as a serious public health problem. Excessive body weight has been shown to predispose to various diseases, particularly cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus type 2, sleep apnea, and osteoarthritis.
What are causes and treatment of obesity and metabolism disorder related to overweight ?
What methods are used for psychotherapy treatment of eating disorders, anorexia, bulimia, binge eating?
The main cause of eating disorders may not be an unhappy childhood, but that a person's feelings and physical sensations are in a confusing jumble.
Prior to psychotherapeutic treatment it was not possible for patients to take responsibility for their inner life or manage it. If effective help is received, it will eventually be possible for patients to manage anxiety. The need to use excessive food or hunger as a drug , when one wants to diminish negative feelings, will then vanish. More.
Anxiety is a natural part of one's life which may be experienced and understood. These negative feelings can be an important source of information which may give possibilities for one's development.
Psychopharmacological medicine can often relieve eating disorders. Medicines like Prozac/Fontex are available in various forms and sometimes may increase the probability that psychotherapy will be successful.
Cognitive therapy: the patient learns to think effectively e.g. "I am normal and it is the photographer's models who are abnormally slim" instead of: "the photographer's models are perfect and I want to look like them. I must reduce my weight". More .
Behavioural therapy: one gets help from somebody, or from a computer, in order to understand and learn how to eat normally. One also gets tips about other things which can be done instead of eating. More .
Psychodynamic therapy and psychoanalysis: unpleasant and painful experiences, usually from childhood, are examined. The therapist helps patients to interpret their feelings.
A problem with treating eating disorders is that patients often have a strong tendency to be so influenced by those in their surroundings that they come away from their own feelings and wishes and just do what the therapist wants. They might accept interpretations which are not based on their own experiences. There is a risk that the patient learns to accept the therapists explanations and do not get in contact with his or her own feelings and physical signals, blaming childhood experiences instead of getting in contact with their own inner world.
Gestalt therapy: the main point of this method is for patients to learn to identify their real needs and feelings. More .
Family therapy: the whole family of a person with eating disorders often needs help in learning how to manage the problem. More .
Diet counseling: patients must learn to change their eating habits and only eat wholesome food, which makes it easier for them to recognize their real needs. They learn to avoid junk food which distorts this ability. Fat, sugar and white flour are out. More .
Group therapy: Patients discuss their problems in a group and the realization that others have similar needs may make it easier to understand their own problems. Members of the group help each other.
Are obese people greedy? Are obese people psychologically disturbed? Are obese people lacking in will-power? Do we have prejudices about obese people?
Answer:
A person who has obesity problems should not only be concerned with health conditions, but should also tackle a vast range of prejudices that are very widespread in our society.
Prejudices about obese people represent a very widespread kind of cultural racism based on a range of wrong stereotyped beliefs and are deeply rooted in Western cultures.
The most common prejudices are:
obese people are greedy people that gain weight because of their uncontrolled greed
obese people are psychologically disturbed people
obese people are people without will, otherwise they can lose weight
These prejudices are more serious because scientific research has shown their falseness. They are ideas that almost everybody has to such a point that even if obesity represents a problem which is widespread as an epidemic at world level (roughly 20% of women and roughly 30% of men of the world are destined to suffer from it by the year 2005) the world would continue to do its best to make obese people's life difficult.
A lot of obese people are too fat also for medical science: to be effectively contained by an operating bed, to stay on a common hospital wheelchair without being jammed inside, to enter a tunnel of an appliance for tomography CAT and NMR.
And yet, if the last two or three million years of human history are considered, obesity seems be a sad, but inexorable destiny of a lot of us.
Evolution seems to have favoured people that have chosen fat and energetic food. Originally, it was useful for the survival of people capable of storing calories to face famine situations. Up to a hundred years ago, this system worked for those who had unlimited access to food and/or had sedentary employment.
With the coming of technologies that automatized this work world and our everyday lives, exercise has become an option or a luxury for many people who live in Western countries. But it is not for this reason that people give up eating high caloric food.
Nowadays one American out of two is considered overweight (in 1950 it was one out of four). In Italy we have 40% overweight people.
Prejudices are not useful to tackle the problem and miraculous pills produced in recent years by pharmaceutical companies do not seem to be giving benefits comparable to their side effects.
Therefore research devotes itself to research on genes that control lipid metabolism and fat deposits.
In the meantime the only thing that seems to work is getting used to a balanced nourishment related to your needs linked to a regular program of physical activity (according to the American National Institute of Health 30 minutes of moderate exercise a day should be enough).
Obesity is both an individual clinical condition and is increasingly viewed as a serious public health problem. Excessive body weight has been shown to predispose to various diseases, particularly cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus type 2, sleep apnea, and osteoarthritis.
What are causes and treatment of obesity and metabolism disorder related to overweight ?
What methods are used for psychotherapy treatment of eating disorders, anorexia, bulimia, binge eating?
The main cause of eating disorders may not be an unhappy childhood, but that a person's feelings and physical sensations are in a confusing jumble.
Prior to psychotherapeutic treatment it was not possible for patients to take responsibility for their inner life or manage it. If effective help is received, it will eventually be possible for patients to manage anxiety. The need to use excessive food or hunger as a drug , when one wants to diminish negative feelings, will then vanish. More.
Anxiety is a natural part of one's life which may be experienced and understood. These negative feelings can be an important source of information which may give possibilities for one's development.
Psychopharmacological medicine can often relieve eating disorders. Medicines like Prozac/Fontex are available in various forms and sometimes may increase the probability that psychotherapy will be successful.
Cognitive therapy: the patient learns to think effectively e.g. "I am normal and it is the photographer's models who are abnormally slim" instead of: "the photographer's models are perfect and I want to look like them. I must reduce my weight". More .
Behavioural therapy: one gets help from somebody, or from a computer, in order to understand and learn how to eat normally. One also gets tips about other things which can be done instead of eating. More .
Psychodynamic therapy and psychoanalysis: unpleasant and painful experiences, usually from childhood, are examined. The therapist helps patients to interpret their feelings.
A problem with treating eating disorders is that patients often have a strong tendency to be so influenced by those in their surroundings that they come away from their own feelings and wishes and just do what the therapist wants. They might accept interpretations which are not based on their own experiences. There is a risk that the patient learns to accept the therapists explanations and do not get in contact with his or her own feelings and physical signals, blaming childhood experiences instead of getting in contact with their own inner world.
Gestalt therapy: the main point of this method is for patients to learn to identify their real needs and feelings. More .
Family therapy: the whole family of a person with eating disorders often needs help in learning how to manage the problem. More .
Diet counseling: patients must learn to change their eating habits and only eat wholesome food, which makes it easier for them to recognize their real needs. They learn to avoid junk food which distorts this ability. Fat, sugar and white flour are out. More .
Group therapy: Patients discuss their problems in a group and the realization that others have similar needs may make it easier to understand their own problems. Members of the group help each other.
Are obese people greedy? Are obese people psychologically disturbed? Are obese people lacking in will-power? Do we have prejudices about obese people?
Answer:
A person who has obesity problems should not only be concerned with health conditions, but should also tackle a vast range of prejudices that are very widespread in our society.
Prejudices about obese people represent a very widespread kind of cultural racism based on a range of wrong stereotyped beliefs and are deeply rooted in Western cultures.
The most common prejudices are:
obese people are greedy people that gain weight because of their uncontrolled greed
obese people are psychologically disturbed people
obese people are people without will, otherwise they can lose weight
These prejudices are more serious because scientific research has shown their falseness. They are ideas that almost everybody has to such a point that even if obesity represents a problem which is widespread as an epidemic at world level (roughly 20% of women and roughly 30% of men of the world are destined to suffer from it by the year 2005) the world would continue to do its best to make obese people's life difficult.
A lot of obese people are too fat also for medical science: to be effectively contained by an operating bed, to stay on a common hospital wheelchair without being jammed inside, to enter a tunnel of an appliance for tomography CAT and NMR.
And yet, if the last two or three million years of human history are considered, obesity seems be a sad, but inexorable destiny of a lot of us.
Evolution seems to have favoured people that have chosen fat and energetic food. Originally, it was useful for the survival of people capable of storing calories to face famine situations. Up to a hundred years ago, this system worked for those who had unlimited access to food and/or had sedentary employment.
With the coming of technologies that automatized this work world and our everyday lives, exercise has become an option or a luxury for many people who live in Western countries. But it is not for this reason that people give up eating high caloric food.
Nowadays one American out of two is considered overweight (in 1950 it was one out of four). In Italy we have 40% overweight people.
Prejudices are not useful to tackle the problem and miraculous pills produced in recent years by pharmaceutical companies do not seem to be giving benefits comparable to their side effects.
Therefore research devotes itself to research on genes that control lipid metabolism and fat deposits.
In the meantime the only thing that seems to work is getting used to a balanced nourishment related to your needs linked to a regular program of physical activity (according to the American National Institute of Health 30 minutes of moderate exercise a day should be enough).
posted by Илона Голкова at 11:34 AM
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Psychologist