The psychological effects of becoming heavy – and obesity – can sometimes be destructive. Larger people are regularly made fun of by others whose weight is in the normal range. Jokes poking fun at overweight and obese people are unexceptional in this society. They are forced to suffer a range of abuse and snide comments including some blatant social denigrations. Because of that a common problem is low self-esteem, can feel inadequate and are viewed as the source of their own problems.
Social situations are potentially embarrassing for a person with excess weight. Having a day at a beach or in public swimming pools, where they wear clothes that are more revealing, tends to be an unpleasant occasion. If an overweight person decides to play competitive sports she will often experience the degradation of being the least wanted. During school, obese or overweight children tend to perform worse when measured academically than ‘normal’ weight peers and have lower grade point averages. As young adults, many times there is more difficulty gaining acceptance into college and securing jobs and future promotions. Small wonder that these experiences lead to poor self esteem and self-confidence. Thus can begin a vicious cycle of social isolation, emotional withdrawal, depression, inactivity, more overeating, and further weight gain.
Body image distortion and general body dissatisfaction among obese and overweight people are sometimes implicated in the occurrence of negative self-worth, and can serve as risk factors toward depression in addition to abnormal eating patterns. Your body image can be affected and shaped by a person’s cultural beliefs and values regarding beauty and attractiveness.
There is no doubt that many overweight people generally blame their obesity on personal medical issues like thyroid disease. As it happens , fewer than one percent of the overweight or obese have a real hormonal imbalance, or any such other medicalcondition. While no one reasonno single reason solely gets to the cause of the phenomenon, lack of exercise.
Needless to say, there are some easy things an obese or overweight person might do to improve his self-esteem. First, they could seek consultation with their physician to determine just how serious the problem is, or if there really is a problem at all. People vary and many seem to be fat whencompared to the ‘average’ weight person are really normal.
Cutting down on watching TV would be beneficial. There is a proven relationship between television viewing and being overweight. The average person watches at least (!) 3 hours of television a day, – do you know what is the thing most repeatedly advertised product on TV? Food! So guess the most likely thing people do while watching TV? Eat – that’s what they do. Watching television should be limited to a reasonable time, say a couple of hours, a day, as a maximum. Better yet, television viewing could sometimes be done while using home exercise equipment like treadmills and stationary bikes.
People with excess weight have a responsibility to shield themselves from the harm, physical and pyschological, caused by being heavy. Establishing healthy eating and exercise patterns, they can defeat this enemy allowing them to enjoy life to the full and not be weighed down by being bigger than the ‘normal’ size.
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