I have recently had numerous individuals reach out to me about weight loss leading in to the following year. This week, I will share bits of information found through reading several articles including meta analysis (study of studies).
The conversation of these articles are intended to discuss weight loss specifically and not necessarily other health associated affects as this information can typically have a lot of “and, if or buts”. If there are other additions to the conversation please reach out to me as I can public additional content in the future.
Support Systems for Weight Loss
Counseling and Psychotherapy is a strategy to combat stress management leading to food consumption, food identity challenges. Binge eating or purging, as well as other emotional associations to food consumption.
“Concerns about childhood abuse, emotional linkages to sustaining obesity (fat-dependent personality), and the management of coexisting mental health problems are the kinds of issues that might be addressed with this type of support service. The individual therapist can structure the format of the therapy but, as with counseling services, the therapist should be familiar with weight-management issues.”
Community led groups: This provides a support group of like minded individuals working towards overcoming weight loss or relative challenges together.
Commercial Groups: Appreciating what is shared in the article, I felt the need to provide the paragraph quote:
“Certain commercial programs like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig can also be helpful. Since commercial groups have their own agenda, caution must be exercised to avoid contradictions between the advice of professional counselors and that of the supportive commercial program. Since the counselors in commercial programs are not likely to be professionals, the quality of counseling offered by these programs varies with the training of the counselors.”
Working in the fitness industry (personal trainer) and the field of physical therapy for many years, I have crossed paths with many of those who go to or lead these groups. I believe they are great resources and can help make great change. However it is important to consider that the programs may be led by a facilitator with knowledge only provided by the program itself and minimal formal professional education in the realm of psychology, nutritional science, kinesiology, or exercise science.
Family Support: “individual family members (or the family as a group) can become an obstacle when they express reluctance to make changes in food and eating patterns within the household. Issues of family conflict become more complex when the participants are children or adolescents or when spouses are reluctant to relinquish status quo positions of control.”
I have commonly worked with individuals who have unsupportive spouses in their nutritional chapter of their weight loss journey. As well as parents who feel they do not want to limit their children to the treats and food options that might have led to obesity in the first place. Having spousal or familial support and perhaps even asking for it is essential to maintain consistency, especially when starting off. Along with maintaining accessibility to appropriate foods compared to having less than ideal snacks readily available.
Reference:
Institute of Medicine (US) Subcommittee on Military Weight Management. (2004). Weight-loss and maintenance strategies. Pubmed. Retrieved January 1, 2023, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK221839/
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