Obesity Treatment 201- Obesity is a health risk.
- Obesity is caused by a combination of physiological and behavioral factors.
- Treating obesity with dieting is effective in the short term but many indivi-
duals regain any lost weight by follow-up. - Dieting in the obese can be associated with psychological and physical
changes such as lowered mood and self-esteem, overeating, and weight
variability. - Weight variability may be more detrimental to health than stable obese
weight. - Successful treatment does bring with it both psychological and physical
benefits. - Exercise is less effective than dieting in the short term but more effective
in the longer term. Exercise also improves health regardless of any weight
loss. - Drug therapy can bring about weight loss but can be accompanied by
unpleasant side effects. - Treating obesity with surgery often results in weight loss and even weight
maintenance but may result in medical complications and weight regain. - Dietary interventions could be improved if they incorporated lessons
from nondietary interventions
Embarking upon a treatment intervention for obesity should involve
weighing up the potential benefits of any weight loss (e.g., improved self-
esteem, reduced risk of mortality and morbidity) against the potential costs
of intervention (e.g., lowered self-esteem, guilt, overeating, weight fluctua-
tions). If weight loss and maintenance could be “guaranteed” then the inter-
vention is worthwhile. If not, then failed treatment may be worse than no
treatment at all. Many researchers and clinicians persist in treating obesity
and attempting to improve treatment outcomes (e.g., Garrow, 1994). In
contrast, those more skeptical researchers such as Wooley and Garner (1994)
argue that it is time to shift the emphasis from the physical consequences of
obesity and address some of the contextual factors such as blame, stigma,
and stereotyping which can make being obese an unpleasant experience.
The Success Stories
Randomized control trials examining the effectiveness of interventions indi-
cate that although the majority of individuals may lose weight initially, the