A team of 100 doctors and medical professionals made a statement from King's College, London, to mark World Obesity Day, on March 3. In it they suggested that calling people fat or lazy must stop - as it was hindering the fight against obesity.
Their paper is published in Nature magazine. It makes it clear that it is not only choice and behaviour that leads to obesity, but also the effects of genetics and environment. They recognise that many obese people may suffer stigma and discrimination - in the workplace, the education system, the media, and the public health sphere. Their behaviour may well be to refuse to do anything about it.
As obesity can lead to a number of serious and positively life-threatening conditions - this is obviously a worry to professionals. But it can also affect quality of life and lead to psychological conditions - such as depression and low self esteem.
Whist it's all very well to highlight this, and launch a Pledge to Eradicate Weight Stigma, not much is actually proposed to go about acheiving this.
It could always be argued that the truth hurts, and maybe it will motivate people to lose weight. But bullying and harrassment is hardly likely to encourage people to change anything in their lives. There is a need for positivity and support in making even the smallest of changes.
One of our clients said, when booking her sessions at Effective Hypnosis, that she was horrified to see that her doctor had referred to her as an obese female ( when she thought she was just a little podgy). At the end of her 6 week program she had lost 2 stones and had a respectble healthy weight of 9 stones. She found that her severe fatigue had disappeared too.
Hypnotherapy had given her the motivation to control her emotions and responses and healthy choices followed. Do have a look at the hundreds of testimonials to our work in www.thebestof.co.uk/local/ealing and our website www.effectivehypnosis.co.uk to see how you could escape from stigma and social exclusion too.
Matthew Hall, Master in Clinical Hypnosis and Specialist in Psychosexual Dysfunction
07732391008 / 01895810772
