People’s inability to control their emotions could make all weight loss efforts pointless. Psychologists say emotions affect weight loss and dealing with them could just be as important as healthy eating and exercising.
More than 1,300 licensed psychologists were included in an American inquiry in which they were asked how they managed their patients’ weight loss problems. Nearly half of them, or 44 percent, said that the better understanding and dealing with the emotions connected to eating was very important. 43 percent of psychologists reported the emotional eating was one of the biggest problems of weight loss. As for the best strategy, 43 percent of the doctors said that keeping to the regular exercise schedule was best, and 28 percent pointed the right eating.
Among the psychologists in the survey conducted by Consumer Reports national Research Center, there were a total of 306 who provided a specialized weight loss treatment. Almost all of them (92 percent) said they had to help patients reaching their underlying conscious or subconscious emotional problems related to gaining weight. Other strategies such as the cognitive therapy, problem-solving and the developing of better awareness were considered as good aid in weight loss by more than 70 percent of the doctors. Cognitive therapy mainly consists of identifying and replacing negative thoughts with positive ones, because it is believed that people with negative emotions are more likely to have unhealthy eating habits. Awareness or mindfulness which is thought by psychologists let the patient not think about their emotions, but be aware of a particular moment.
According to Norman B. Anderson, PhD, chief executive officer of the American Psychological Association, maintaining the weight is very difficult, but now specialized therapies heal the patient’s emotional condition which helps with their weight loss efforts. The idea of fixing the emotional state of a person before fixing their bad food habits have been discussed for a long time now. When there is no problem with emotions and thoughts it would be easier to handle eating and exercise, as well as pretty much everything else.
