Obssing with losing weight is a very bad idea to lose weight. Luckily, science has many more effective

A young doctor appears before his boss and, although he does not say it out loud, he thinks “the last time I was in front of him, I swept at least a liter. But now I’m going to sweat at least ten, that guy will find out what is to sweat!” Then, do not sweat a drop.

It is not fiction, it is A real case collected by psychiatrist Viktor Frankl In 1994. He did to explain that many times our fears, objectives and intentions play against us. And yes, we are talking about losing weight.

Against us? It’s as if, for using A metaphor of another psychologists (Steven C. Hayes)“We fell into a deep hole and the only thing we had to go out was with a shovel. As we don’t know very well what to do and we despair, we started using the shovel.” The result, despite working day and night, is that we are deeper than before.

What in the background tells us a good number of psychologists (from Logotherapists to Specialists in acceptance and commitment) is that we are so culturally attached to certain behavioral strategies that, although they are not useful, we cannot get rid of them.

The obsession with “losing weight” is a problem. And yes, obsession is the word. In Spain, where 52% of the adult population presents overweight or obesity, seven out of ten people (72%) They have tried to lose weight at least once in their life. In fact, According to the Mapfre Foundation datathey have done it, on average, about seven times.

That leads to “53% of Spaniards has ever followed a popular or miracle diet with the aim of losing weight.” It is not an accident; It is the consequence of what I commented: in the popular imaginary, the way of losing weight is that.

That is to say, In words Giuseppe Russolillopresident of the Spanish Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, “the population is not fully aware that the methods that use weight losing are extremes and can put their health at risk and that the recovery of the lost weight is frequent.”

And what can we do? The first is to banish false myths. Sï, obesity is a health problem; but Not so clear that overweight is in general terms. “The life expectancy of people overweight is not less than that of Normopeso”, He told us Juan Ramón BarradaProfessor at the University of Zaragoza. Many ideas that we have above all this and that we use to justify our behaviors, are still disciplinary stories.

That does not mean that health is not important. It means that many of those ideas about overweight, health and beauty are cultural strategies equivalent to getting to cabin being inside a well.

So? There are no scientific knowledge that can help us? “From what we can extract from current investigations, there are three tips that can be given to anyone: Eat healthyexercise and Accept your body. Today, everything is reduced to weight loss, “he continued Barrada. Therefore, “we must be clear that stigmatizing people overweight or obesity such as ‘vague’ or ‘lack of will’ is to promote suffering” unjustified.

And do it with ourselves too. Luckily, as Barrada pointed out, there is another way of doing things.

Image | I Yunmai

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