Thursday, 16 August 2012

8 Reasons Why We Are Fat: A Visit From Rambo Psychiatrist

Contributor: “Dr. J”
Dr. J offers his irreverent, slightly irrelevant, but possibly useful opinions on health and fitness. A Florida surgeon and fitness freak with a black belt in karate, he runs 50 miles a week and flies a Cherokee Arrow 200.

(CC) Sebastian Hey/Flickr

At the recent annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, psychologists presented their thoughts on obesity and why many of us continue to struggle with this problem. I can’t think of anyone better to present this information than Rambo Psychiatrist.

Okay, it’s true that a psychiatrist is not a psychologist, but when you get that big bill in the mail for lying on either of their couches, what’s the difference?

8 Reasons Why We Are Fat

The main reason we are fat is because we eat more calories than we use for energy. If we happen to be trying to gain weight for whatever reason, we do need to eat more calories than we use to add weight to our bodies, but if we are gaining weight or not losing weight when we would like to, taking in too many calories than we are using for energy is always what is happening.

Thanks to the observations of our psychologist colleagues, there are several reasons that this is happening to us, and knowing these can help us be vigilant and hopefully do something about it.

  1. We are fat because food is everywhere all the time. As psychologist Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University in New Haven, Conn. says, “We’ve been completely retrained to think that large portions are acceptable, that eating throughout the day is acceptable, that eating late at night is acceptable, that eating in the car is acceptable. All the boundaries that would put limits around eating have been exploded.” If we want this to change, we need to stop this nonstop eating!
  2. We are fat because we are getting too little sleep and having children at an older age; both of these factors have been linked to an increased chance of obesity. I guess this is because we needed to catch up on our sleep, and so we were older by the time we got around to making children.
  3. We are fat because our parents married other fat people and had kids who are genetically predisposed to being fat. Love is a beautiful thing. If we want to keep that thing for as long as possible, we need to work a little harder to do that if we have our genetics working against that. Being careful with our diet and being active has been shown to overcome genetic disadvantages when it comes to weight.
  4. We are fat because our brains only have so much willpower in them and we are using it up with the business of daily living. Psychologists call this “cognitive demand,” and always being occupied mentally with so many tasks can wear out our ability to have self-control over the temptations of food. Having a concrete plan in mind before this happens and sticking to that plan is a good way to combat this.
  5. We are fat because we eat too large a variety of foods at our meals. Most of us have experienced how our pleasure with a particular food decreases as we eat more of it. If we are constantly eating a new food at the buffet, this doesn’t happen and we will tend to eat more. Keeping our meals simple will prevent this. No one ever got fat eating K-rations, although I’m not so sure that applies to the greater variety found in the current MRE that our military uses.
  6. We are fat because we have become addicted to food. The high concentrations of salt, sugar, and fat in many of our foods becomes too hard for us to resist. If we eat as many whole, natural foods — such as fruits and vegetables — as we can and stay away from processed foods, we can avoid this serious obesity trap.
  7. We are fat because we have become habituated to very large portions of very calorie-dense foods. The only way to change this is to re-habituate ourselves to normal portion sizes and find less calorie-dense, yet nutritious foods to enjoy. Even though a habit may not be a true addiction, it can still be very hard to overcome.
  8. We are fat because when we are fat and people tell us that we are fat and we don’t like that so we eat more. Psychologists call this an example of “social stigma,” defined as “the extreme disapproval of, or discontent with, a person on the grounds of characteristics that distinguish them from other members of a society.”

“When people are stigmatized because of their weight, they are more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors, like binge eating and unhealthy weight-control practices,” says Rebecca Puhl, director of Research and Weight Stigma Initiatives at the Rudd Center. “They actually increase their food consumption and have lower motivation for physical activity. They are at increased risk for numerous psychological consequences that includes depression, anxiety, poor body image, low self-esteem and, unfortunately, suicide.”

People, whatever their size, have feelings! Being respectful of others who are different is important to being a humane person. We all have problems and we all wish to be respected as we confront and deal with our own challenges.

Rambo may be tough as nails, but he still has feelings, and those include not being happy with people who do not treat others with respect.

Rambo out!

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8 Reasons Why We Are Fat: A Visit From Rambo Psychiatrist is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog

Source: http://calorielab.com/news/2012/08/06/8-reasons-why-we-are-fat/

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