Obesity is a complex disease. Certainly nutrition is a major contributing factor to why we have trouble with our weight. I think we all realize we don’t always make the best food choices we can. Nutrition, however, is only part of the solution.
To be successful we need to look at several other areas. Many of us are stressed out with life, work, family, finances, etc. I often think food is the most commonly used drug in the world because when we are stressed or anxious or depressed, a common way to make ourselves feel better is to eat something. This doesn’t last very long nor solve anything so if we keep doing it repeatedly, we gain weight.
To effectively manage a healthy weight, these issues need to be addressed. A pre-diabetic condition called insulin resistance is very common and makes weight loss exceedingly difficult. Sometimes medication is necessary to treat this to assist in losing weight.
Finally, we have abnormal behaviors that can contribute to being overweight. For example, Mom always made us clean our plates as kids and, by golly, we eat everything on our plates now even if we aren’t hungry. Plate sizes are larger now than fifty years ago, especially in restaurants, so we feel we have to eat more. Some people binge eat or hide eating. All of these need to be looked at and addressed to be successful.
