The mental effects of carrying excess weight – and obesity – can often be devastating. Larger people are regularly ridiculed by others who have normal weights. Jokes poking fun at overweight and obese people are unexceptional in our society. They are often have to put up with a tirade of abuse and pyschological barbs as well as social denigrations. As a result, they sometimes suffer from poor self-esteem, sometimes feel inadequate and are frequently viewed as the source of their own problem.

Social situations are potentially uncomfortable for those with obesity. Having a day at a beach or in public swimming pools, because they have to wear clothes which are more revealing, is an embarrassing occasion. Those who decide to play competitive sports he will often go through the humiliation of being the last ones chosen for teams. In school, obese or overweight children tend to perform worse when measured academically than their normal weight peers – they also have lower grade point averages. As young adults, it’s not uncommon for them to have more difficulty gaining acceptance into college and securing jobs and future promotions. Is it any wonder that such life experiences lead to poor self esteem and self-confidence. That begins a succession of social isolation, emotional withdrawal, more overeating, caused by depression, inactivity, and further weight gain.

Body image distortion and overall body dissatisfaction experienced by obese and overweight people have been implicated in the occurrence of negative self-worth, and may serve as risk factors for the development ofdepression as well as unhealthy eating behaviours. Your body image can be affected – as well as partly determined – by a person’s cultural values and beliefs regarding physical beauty.

Many overweight people like to blame their heaviness on medical issues such as thyroid disease. The unfortunate truth is that , fewer than 1% of those who are overweight or obese have a real hormonal imbalance, or any such other condition. While there isn’t a single reason that solely gets to the cause of the phenomenon, lack of exercise.

There are a few simple things an obese or overweight person can do to enhance their self-esteem. For starters they can seek out the advice of a physician to determine just how serious the problem is, or if there really is a problem at all. Of course everyone is different and some of those who seem to be obese whencompared to their friends may just be normal.

Limiting the amount of TV they watch would be a good start. There is a proven relationship being overweight and watching television. The average person watches at least (!) three hours of TV every day, – do you know what is the item most frequently featured product on TV? Food – as you probably already know. What are people most likely to do while watching television? Eat! TV would probably be better limited to just a couple of hours every day. Better yet, TV watching could sometimes be done while riding a stationary bike or walking on a treadmill.

Overweight people must bear the responsibility to defend themselves from the harm, physical and pyschological, brought about by being overweight. By establishing healthy eating and exercise patterns, they can defeat this enemy so that they can live and enjoy life and not be weighted down because of being bigger than the normal weight.