Health, Obesity

Obesity management and the paradox of control

Jane Ogden argues that psychological solutions are not always best.

18 April 2005

Obesity is mainly seen by health professionals as a psychological problem relating to beliefs and two key behaviours – overeating and underactivity. As a result, obesity has traditionally been treated with psychologically based interventions designed to change these factors. I will argue that such psychological approaches have a long history of failure and that it is time to supplement them with non-psychological solutions. I also argue that turning away from psychology can actually have some interesting and unexpected effects on peoples' psychological state.

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