Obesity occurs when there is an excess of adipose tissue, which results in an increase in body tissue. A person is considered obese when he/she exceeds 20% of his/her ideal weight, depending on his/her size, complexion, sex and age.
We live in a society in which there is a positive overvaluation of thinness and overweight is rejected. Being obese is nowadays a social stigma. The social pressure against obesity is so clear that we all know people who complain about their fatness (real or fictitious) or who are dieting. We also know that the comment “you are fatter” is one of the worst insults we can hear.
There is also a generalized rejection in society towards obesity because it is considered as the consequence of a vice and it is assumed that the obese person is obese because he/she wants to be, because he/she eats uncontrollably and gluttonously. Overweight people are thought to be weak and incapable of taking care of themselves.
This pressure is even stronger in the case of women who are required by the media and their environment to be slim and attractive. This constant attention to body size affects personal and emotional relationships and, obviously, also has consequences for self-esteem.
During childhood, many parents are not aware of how their comments about their children’s bodies affect them, even if they are jokes. Typically, children who hear these comments have a worsening of their self-esteem and, relatively often, the humiliating memory of such comments can set in motion an anorexia disorder.
Multidisciplinary treatment of obesity
Overweight people are more at risk than thin people for psychological disorders, as they develop a negative self-concept and their self-esteem is very low. Although very little considered, psychological and family aspects play a decisive role in the production and maintenance of obesity, and should therefore be treated.
In these cases, as well as in the case of people who are following a diet, the most appropriate thing to do is to resort to psychological treatment. On the one hand, the specialist in Psychology helps to promote the necessary skills to be able to carry out the diet (self-control, adequate life habits, assertiveness, how to prevent relapses), which is very important in order not to regain the lost weight.
On the other hand, it is very important the psychological treatment of those aspects in the person’s life that have been affected by their overweight, such as self-esteem, social relationships, negative mood and anxiety.
In short, our era embarks its citizens in a pursuit of thinness at any price. The reasons are aesthetic. Being thin is a basic condition to feel accepted and, therefore, to be accepted. All this has psychological consequences on the person that need to be treated, as well as teaching the necessary skills to lose weight and keep it off.