Weight and SelfEsteem

2010
03.10

The mental effects of carrying excess weight – and obesity – are devastating. People with a weight issue are often teased by others who have normal weights. Name calling and jibes at heavier people are regular in today’s society. The obese are often forced to endure a range of abuse and snide comments including some blatant social denigrations. Because of this they sometimes suffer from poor self-esteem, often feel inadequate and are frequently looked upon as the source of their own problem.

Every social situation is , or can be, awkward for a person with obesity. Spending some time at a beach or public pools, because they wear clothes that are more revealing, is an embarrassing occasion. If an overweight person decides to play competitive sports he will often undergo the embarrassment of being the least wanted. Quite often, in school, obese or overweight children tend to perform worse academically than ‘normal’ weight peers – they also tend to have lower grade point averages. When they finally leave school, there is often more difficulty gaining acceptance into college and securing jobs and future promotions. Small wonder that these experiences tend to lead to poor self esteem and self-confidence. These begin an unfortunate succession of social isolation, emotional withdrawal, more overeating, caused by depression, inactivity, and further weight gain.

The distortion of body image and general body disappointment among obese and overweight people are often linked in the occurrence of negative self-worth, and for some people can act as risk factors toward the development ofdepression not to mention abnormal eating patterns. One’s body image can be affected – as well as partly determined – by such things as cultural values and beliefs to do with physical attractiveness and beauty.

Many heavy people generally blame any heaviness on medical conditions such as thyroid disease. The truth is , less than one percent of the overweight or obese have a true hormonal imbalance, or any such other condition. While there isn’t a single reason that completely explains this phenomenon, likely causes are poor nutrition, bad eating habits, and.

Needless to say, there are some very simple things an obese or overweight person can do to enhance his self-esteem. First, they can seek out advice from their physician to determine how serious the problem is, or if there really is a problem at all. Everyone is built differently and many appear obese compared to the ‘average’ weight person really are just normal.

They should reduce the amount of TV watching. There’s a link between television viewing and being overweight. Most people watch at least (!) 3 hours of television every day, and guess what is the thing most commonly featured product on TV? Food. So guess the most likely thing people do when watching TV? They eat food. Watching TV should be limited to a reasonable time, say a couple of hours, every day. More beneficially, television viewing can be done while taking exercise, like on a treadmill.

People with too much excess weight bear the responsibility to guard themselves from the harm, physical and pyschological, caused by being obese. Establishing healthy eating and exercise patterns, it is possible to overcome the enemy – weight, allowing them to enjoy life to the full without the burden of being weighed down by being bigger than the ‘average weight.


Related Blogs

Tags: , ,

Your Reply

CommentLuv badge

This site uses KeywordLuv. Enter YourName@YourKeywords in the Name field to take advantage.