Link between obesity and mental health

Obesity may seem like it’s a choice–a lifestyle option that many have chosen. Many believe that obesity is really about overeating due to greed and lack of discipline, but this is often not the case. Obesity can be a side effect of a mental health problem which can even occasionally be the main source of all the fat to begin with. Let’s dig deeper into the various types of mental health problems which can cause obesity, and vice versa.

Mental health can be defined as the level of emotional wellbeing or cognitive wellbeing. People often misconceive mental health issues as being mad or “nuts”. In point, a mental health issue may be as simple as depression or feeling unhappy as well as more serious conditions like obsessive compulsive disorder. There are several obesity-causing psychological disorders worthy of discussion here.

Anxiety Disorders These are commonly known as any condition that can induce large amounts of situational stress like agoraphobia, acute stress disorder and post traumatic stress disorder. Obesity in the long run can caused by anxiety and is often a way of coping with the stress. Foods high in sugar, fat, and calories alter the body’s response to chronic stress. Therefore, if you always go through high amounts of stress in your life, eating fatty food may make things worse. This is a vicious cycle, because the more fats you eat, the worse you feel and obese you become. In cases like these, your anxiety disorder needs to be treated before the obesity rushes out of control. Once you believe there is no stress or anxiety in your life, only then will you be able to stop overeating in order to control it.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

OCD is a mental health disorder that creates thoughts and obsessions that can be vastly illogical. These thoughts, manufactured in the mind, make you compulsive and go through repetitive, irrational behavior. Is it merely a control issue? Many people develop OCD as a way of being able to take control of their lives. If you went through a previous situation where you were helpless, OCD could be a mere coping mechanism. Because of the compulsive thoughts and behavior, many OCD sufferers overeat and become obese. OCD sufferers also become wary of certain foods and often stick to one or two things which they can eat. If you are an obese OCD patient and are really wary of germs, then it’s not uncommon for them to only eat canned or sterilized items.

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Unfortunately, food from tin containers and cans aren’t the most nutritious of meals, and in these cases, OCD sufferers refuse fruit or vegetables because of the pesticides or soil contact. For OCD to be treated, the person will need counseling and possibly medication to keep his or her compulsive behavior under control. After that, they can begin to approach the problem with a dietitian.

Depression This can come about for many different reasons. It may be due to a break down in a relationship, or a change in circumstances. It may even be related to post natal depression. Whichever it may be, depression can affect anyone. The levels of depression can vary greatly. One day, you could be feeling a bit low, but on the other, you can feel almost suicidal. Many people who are depressed resort to “comfort” food. These foods are usually fatty or high sugar content foods which reduce the stress and depression levels for a certain amount of time. Unfortunately, these foods fail to reduce the levels for prolonged amounts of time, and therefore, the sufferer will eat these foods more and more often. This results in obesity. Many people mistake depression for self pity and often don’t feel that help is necessary here. Depression is actually a mental health disorder and should be treated by a health care professional with the use of counseling or medication. Unfortunately, clinical depression is not the kind of mental health disorder that just disappears quickly on its own. That’s why your obesity symptoms can often last much longer than those of depression.

Learning Difficulties In Young Obesity Victims Children can be susceptible to mental health disorders as they are at a very impressionable age. Many disorders such as Asperger’s Syndrome, ADHD, and full-fledged autism show the first signs early on in life. This can be a confusing time for children and may create a lot of stress and anxiety. The sequence causes children to overeat as part of a coping mechanism. Giving your kids extra food to deal with their problems can also be a way showing your love for your children, but this is probably a wrong idea. Autistic children sometimes don’t understand emotions, and in return, parents feel like they can show their love by inadvertently spoiling their kids. This can often mean feeding them junk food several times (if not every day) a week. Remember that children with mental health disorders and learning difficulties have a hard time adjusting to their condition and are in and out of clinics being diagnosed and treated. Unless the obesity is severe, it’s easier to let the child eat whatever he or she likes until he or she is being well treated and is comfortable with the situation. Making your child go on a diet when he or she is in a difficult time of life will only worsen any mental health disorder along with the obesity.

Stress

Here’s something which none of us can permanently avoid. Although many don’t find this is all too relevant to mental health, any emotion that you feel could be connected to mental health, and as such, stress is one of the most common mental health disorders. Stress can occur in every-day events life at work, home, and with family but as you may recollect, people take comfort in fatty foods as they lower the levels of stress. This of course will cede unwanted levels of obesity if used as a permanent relief from overwhelming work. To avoid getting obese while very stressed out, take a look at all possible causes of your stress and try to deal with it directly if possible.

Too much stress is not only bad for your waistline, but harmful to your heart and brain too. The idea here is to block it upfront, rather than using food to mask any mental health problem. If you cannot see yourself without stress in your life, then try to find something else that will allow you to let off steam without putting on the extra pounds. Exercise is very good for reducing stress as it releases endorphins (your pain relieving hormones). This has the same effect as junk food, but is much healthier for you as you fight off the obesity.

Costs Of Obesity-Related Psychological Problems Consider the amount of strain that obesity is putting on the health care system. While we live in a society of privatized healthcare, there’s no denying that obesity-related mental health problems are costing us more and more each year. Mental health issues are hard enough to treat without the addition of a dietitian, eating disorder group therapy and gastric band surgery. All of this costs a lot of money, and some countries such as the UK, who have ‘free’ health care services, are really feeling the burden. These countries are unable to cope with the demands but still have a duty to treat everyone equally. They have to treat the mental health disorder in addition to treating obesity.

THE ODD COUPLE: MENTAL HEALTH AND FOOD

Mental health disorders are often a major factor for your obesity. However, the obesity can be an underlying problem originally triggered by a mental health disorder. Many become obese in adulthood because they weren’t introduced to the dangers of overeating when they were young. By not teaching your child how to eat properly, sensibly and healthily as children, then they are unlikely to eat healthily during adulthood. Junior chef schools have always been around, but in the modern era, children need to learn the importance of nutritious food and how to eat healthy in ways that don’t require cooking. Children are normally unaware of which vegetable to choose and have no idea about fat content and calorie content. Because of this lack of education towards food, they resort to buying processed foods, junk food and takeout when they are adults. This causes obesity and becomes a vicious circle. If these adults were taught at a young age how to cook simple yet nutritious meals, then they would have no need to resort to junk food and know when to stop eating.

The Mentalities Of Overeating

Eating disorders are also responsible for causing obesity and have psychological basis. While the term “eating disorder” is publicly associated with very thin girls who don’t eat, this is in fact a misconception. Eating disorders can include overeating, binging, food purging, and additional problems. Bulimia in particular, can cause obesity as the people often binge on high fat and sugar content food. This food is a shock to your system which usually receives no food at all so clings to as much of it as it can. In fact, even with anorexia, you put weight on before it comes off, since your body is reacting to starvation and bulks up its reserves in response. Selective Eating Disorder (SED) is when only certain foods are consumed. This type of behavior also referred to as perseverative feeding disorder, can have little rhyme or reason to it when you prefer one brand of food to another. Others are more serious about what they put inside themselves and will only eat food that is white, or soft. This can be a very bad diet and will almost certainly cause obesity. Many people with SED won’t be deterred by weight gain, because it’s sometimes more important to control the type of food that goes in than the quantity of it. The eating disorder most likely to cause obesity is Compulsive Overeating. This is more commonly known as binge eating. Often linked with OCD, this is a behavioral problem that’s more of a self-control problem rather than a weight issue.

Approximately 2% of all adults in the US suffer from binge eating issues. It can occur at any age but is common to teenagers and young adults, and this 2% are far more likely to have depression than a mentally healthy obese person. Because the binge eating is so easily hidden, many people find that their families and friends don’t know about their condition, and treatment is therefore set back. Compulsive overeating needs to be treated by a mental health professional and counseling because there is usually a major underlying problem that needs to be addressed before the obesity is targeted.

Some eating abnormalities can go unnoticed for years while the person gets more and more obese. This is a typical sign with night eating syndrome. This can be when a person will binge eat very late at night and sometimes even in their sleep, carried out via the same brain activity as sleepwalking. There is often an underlying problem and sometimes goes untreated due to the fact that the victims don’t know they are eating. People who suffer from night eating syndrome usually go for high fat and high sugar foods or junk foods. Any binge eaters will try to fill their binges with high fat and sugar foods because of it raising the serotonin levels. These serotonin levels are found low in many people with eating disorders and this is believed to be the reason they choose fatty and sugary foods. A lot of antidepressant drugs are termed selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) because they block off serotonin. The common denominator here is that we all suffer from depression and anxiety at some point in our lives. In fact, depression and anxiety is a common feeling throughout the majority of the world population.

Your doctor might tell you that can develop an emotional attachment to food and because of it, you’ll simply eat and eat whenever you feel sad. Comfort eating is clearly evidenced when someone is constantly depressed and thereby turns to overeating. This is certainly a clinical problem. The matter arises when the psychiatrist has to decide what exactly is causing the overeating. It needs to be dealt with using the above methods and only then can subjects focus on getting better. Many people who overeat don’t even realize that they have a problem. People think that comfort eating is just a natural thing and that everybody does it. In truth, these people need counseling to talk about why they think that eating will make them happier. Some people will eat out of boredom and need a little guidance to reveal why they are bored or disclose ways in which they can keep themselves occupied. That’s how you don’t end up eating all day and night.

Obesity and mental health go hand in hand. People who are obese often feel depressed and hate the size of their bodies. Because of these feelings and thoughts, obesity victims look to food for comfort. These foods are usually high in fat. It is a cycle that’s hard to break and can often be very difficult. Putting food in our mouths could be the easiest way to explain obesity because it’s bound to make us fatter, but sometimes we don’t have the will power or mental strength to say no. Many obese people suffer from Body Dysmorphic Disorder, where they see themselves differently than the way they really are. Some will look in the mirror and see a thin person and therefore carry on eating, while others perceive a morbidly obese person and therefore feel depressed and eat more. Many people who are stuck in a cycle of depression and consume large amounts of food won’t ask for help if they are content with their diet. It’s usually when a family member, friend or health professional intercedes and reveals what’s happening, that the victim will actually do something about it. Once the obese person decides to break the cycle that is causing them to be obese, it’s time to approach the problem at a psychological angle. Body Dysmorphic Disorder is a major mental health issue as the person needs to have enough motivation to stop themselves from taking in junk food to binge on.

FINDING MINDFULNESS

When you realize that you or your loved one needs more than just a diet club when it comes to obesity, and you feel that there may be an underlying mental health issue, it’s best to see a mental health professional right away. Sometimes you will be referred to a mental health professional by your physician or weight loss specialist. They will be able to point you in the right direction and get you the help that’s needed. Several different types of mental health professionals can help you get rid any mental problems that are connected with your obesity:

Psychiatric And Mental Health Nurses

This health professional is not just a nurse but has spent years at college specializing in mental health. He or she will work in a wide range of health care settings like hospitals, community health centers and outpatient medical clinics. These nurses are able to identify what is wrong with you and will regularly see cases of substance abuse problems and psychiatric disorders on a daily basis. They are able to draw up a treatment plan and help take charge of your clinical care. Psychiatric nurses need to have at least a degree in general nursing and then go on to specialize in psychiatry. To become a nurse practitioner, a nurse must attend 6 years of schooling to be considered completely qualified.

Social workers Social workers are more involved with the care at home than at a hospital. They are dispatched to homes to fully assess you and determine the outcome. Many social workers do home visits for a more comfortable setting, or if you are unable to make it out of your home. This is necessary when the person has little or no self-confidence. It can also arise from severe obesity and occasionally, it’s due to a mental disorder like OCD. Social workers get in touch with the relevant mental health practitioners and advise them of the situation. They will then get together and decide what is best for you and to decide the route of action. Some people will be admitted to a mental health hospital, while others will be able to receive treatment at home. Home can be a much safer option because it makes the person feel more relaxed, but it is easier for them to cheat on a specific diet or routine. Social workers have to be educated to a master’s or doctorate degree that’s standardized in their specific field. The difference between a social worker and a nurse is that a nurse actually works on the clinical health of a person while the social worker works on the overall wellbeing of the person from a social and personal standpoint. A social worker may suggest the services of a home health aide while a nurse can assist with personal hygiene directly.

Counseling Psychologist Counseling is a great way to vent out your problems. Counseling psychologists are trained to ask questions in a way that makes you reveal more about yourself than is already known. Many people find that through counseling, they have really have a lot more issues than they knew, but the idea is that by talking about them, you’re actually addressing the issue in a positive manner. Therefore, it won’t affect the subject’s life any longer. Obesity victims find that their problems may stem from a childhood issue like bullying. Part of our brain blocks out bad memories, so by talking and trying to remember it, you are realizing what is making you eat in the first place. Counseling also works very well if you are willing to give it a go. Some people don’t believe in talking about things and would rather bottle it up. By talking about it, you can start to understand what is at stake, and with the help of a counselor, you can figure out how to change.

Psychiatrist

This professional is at the top of the food chain when it comes to treating obesity-causing mental issues. They go through extensive training and have to spend about 13 years gaining different qualifications. Psychiatrists focus on diagnosing people with mental health issues and treating them by using medicine, cognitive behavioral therapy, or psychotherapy. A psychiatrist will typically specialize in a certain areas, including:

Child psychiatry

Adult psychiatry

Neuropsychiatry

Learning disabilities

Behavioral medicine

Emergency psychiatry

Addiction psychiatry

Forensic psychiatry

Psychosomatic medicine

Pain medicine

As an obesity victim, it’s common to see more than one of the above mental health professionals. There are lots of different assistants, health care advisors, and more that will help with mental health issues and obesity. Some say that they have to treat the mental issue before targeting the obesity; a useful game plan if the mental issue is causing the obesity in the first place. Many healthcare providers believe that with a bit of self-confidence and a lot of education, their clients will naturally slim down after they begin treatment. Treatments can take years and years before the problem goes away. This is why it is a good idea to stay in contact with your psychiatrist so that if any warning signs ever return, you can let them know.

Choose What’s Right For You

A few obesity victims get treated at home more easily than others, while others require inpatient therapy, resident care, or hospitalization. There’s no hard rule to how a specific mental health issue is treated at home, since this will depend on the person and the varying degree of the issue. Mental health professionals spend many years training and gaining qualifications in their specified field. That’s why they know exactly what they are doing and can decide if and when obesity victims should be treated at home. Some mental health issues don’t even need treatment by a mental health professional and can be dealt with by your local physician.

Making sure of getting the right treatment is essential, but there are more ways to deal with your obesity and psychological issues aside from seeing a mental health professional. By using these methods, you can help yourself way before needing the help of others. You may also notice that your treatment works faster if you help things along.

THE WONDER OF DIET CLUBS

To remain within the “unitary” shade of this book, we must include diet clubs in our discussion. Joining diet clubs and focus groups are a good idea when you think you don’t have the right willpower to lose weight at home or on your own. This may not help with your mental health issue but will help you lose weight, thereby gaining a bit more self-esteem. Diet clubs could be anything from a group of people in a local hall chatting about healthy lifestyles and exercise, to a corporate club where fees are charged and a diet has been formulated for every individual. Remember that both of these methods have their ups and downs.

Diet clubs be able to track your progress and the group will generally give a helping hand if you need a bit of steering in the right direction. These diet clubs sometimes delve deeper into why you are hungry and what you eat throughout the day. You should be honest with them and not hide any information that will keep you from losing weight! Joining a diet club will give you the opportunity to make new friends and gain new life experiences. Obese individuals, especially those with mental health issues, often find it difficult to make friends that have something in common with them. Talking to anyone in general can be tough when you lack self-esteem.

At a diet club, you get introduced to people who all share the same interest as you, which is losing weight. No matter how well or badly you have done through the week, you generally get a round of applause for trying anyway. It will be a good idea to tell your group leader that you have a mental health issue as it may need to be monitored. Other options include support groups like Overeaters Anonymous that offer group counseling for all its members.

Corporations The corporate approach to dieting is very strict in its ways and may hand you a diet that is guaranteed to work, whereas the local club may only be about strategies for adding healthy foods to your lifestyle. Corporate diet clubs are expensive and can depend on what they offer. For the ones offering counseling, special client packets, food or weekly weigh-in things can cost a pretty penny. Others will simply ask for a few dollars a week while you get weighed. With all programs, it’s better to have someone keeping an eye on your weight.

WHEN MEDICATION ISN’T THE GREATEST

Behavioral Therapy

As an obesity patient, it never hurts to try behavioral therapy. This can be in the form of non-medicinal treatment by a psychiatrist. It’s like a psychological intervention for overweight and obese people. Studies have proven that the method works wonders and gives results to many that it’s been used on. Behavioral therapy works best when combined with exercise and healthy diet. This rids you of your obesity problems by focusing on the source. If your psychiatrist has diagnosed you with a disorder like overeating, multiple personality disorder or obsessive compulsive disorder, the therapist will give special focus to that particular illness.

You could get referred to a therapist by your psychiatrist or physician and undergo therapy for a few years or more. Depending on how bad the situation is, some obesity victims are scheduled with a therapist up to five times a week. Behavioral therapists attempt to change the way you think and alter the whole mental pattern so that you can break free from a bad routine. For example, if you are afraid of heights, then your behavioral therapist will talk through your problem and take you out to places such as a building and slowly take you one floor higher each time you go out. They constantly assure and remind you that your fear is irrational and that imagination is responsible for providing false ideas. They will continue to do this until your problems are gone.

This approach can be used to tackle a wide spectrum of mental health issues but has to be done by a trained professional. Otherwise, it may damage the person even more. All therapists have gone through extensive training and are often specialized in a specific field. This means that they treat people with the same mental health issue every day and know what is successful and what isn’t. Get involved in group therapies known to assist people whose issues aren’t quite so severe. This is where a group of people with the same issue will all join together and talk about their personal experiences. The idea here is that the therapist leads the group into sharing thoughts and by doing this gives the other members of the group some hope and understanding. It can be very scary for a person visualize themselves mentally as the only one with an obesity problem, so when they are met by the group, they get a boost in self-esteem and plenty of confidence.

Whatever the form of therapy, it’s important not to miss any appointments. Therapists usually draw out a detailed treatment plan which may be set up in stages. Each stage might build onto the previous one. To this end, people who don’t follow the treatment plan will find it harder to get better and could even relapse back to the beginning of the treatment plan. Behavioral therapy is very effective and can make a real difference. Trusting the professional is crucial to making this all work, and a bond that strengthens the treatment is usually formed between both the person and the therapist.

Dieticians

You may be asked to see a dietitian for your obesity once your mental health issues are successfully treated by your psychiatrist. Dietitians are used to analyze what you eat and how you can go about putting healthier foods on your personal menu. They often have a challenge with obesity sufferers who feel the need to hide what they eat from them, for example stating that they eat two bags of chips a day when they really eat five, and so on.

This of course does not help the dietitian, and he or she can usually tell a lie from the truth when the plan isn’t working at all. Dietitians are normally certified in their field and will bring a wealth of experience to the table. They work in both hospital settings and community, which is plus for those who can’t leave the house for specific reasons. A dietitian will write up a food plan to follow and will suggest taking fatty foods and sugary foods out of your diet. This is an ideal chance to discuss with them what sort of foods you like and whether you prefer vegetables or fruit. Being in a happy mood while eating helps with the digestive process because it triggers the release of the right enzymes and stress hormones.

A dietitian can teach you how to include vegetables and fruit in great tasting meals and how to cook them. A dietitian will also tell you how to cook your food so that it is the healthiest. Grilling instead of frying is an example here. Dietitian’s don’t work with just obese people, but also advise non-obese individuals on what they should and should not eat. People with osteoarthritis for example, should avoid citrus fruits and milk products. This also works for mental health issues as it is known that certain foods can trigger different states of mind. People who have concerns such as night eating syndrome can be helped by a dietitian because they can tell the victim when it’s best to eat, what to eat before bed to fill them up, and things to keep in the fridge to stop them from putting so much weight on.

Dietitians are often used for therapy after a mental health issue has been treated. Taking on a lot of things at once make things really tough, especially if your mental health issue is ruling your life. This is why your first trip is often to the psychiatrist, followed by a behavioral therapist, and then finally, the dietitian. By getting better on the inside (improving mentally), you could focus on building your life back up again and boosting personal confidence by losing weight. Eating healthily and sticking to the dietitian’s plan will help you lose weight, while incorporating exercise into your life will heal you even quicker. Visit your dietitian weekly or if possible, join a weight loss boot camp. These camps are mostly for morbidly obese who find it difficult to adhere to any exercise or diet plan. Boots camps will put you on a very strict diet and will involve several hours of exercise a day. It may seem harsh but people have lost upwards of 14lbs a week in these camps.

DRUGS, COUNSELING, AND THE COST OF OBESITY-RELATED PSYCHOLOGY

Your physician or psychologist may feel that your need to lose weight is just as important as your need to have your mental health issue treated. This is where medication enters the picture. Obesity victims will occasionally have other issues that have a knock-on effect like high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease. These all need attention, and using medications for treatment is generally the road to take so you can concentrate on mental health issues. Drugs will be given to help lower blood pressure, insulin may be given for diabetes (some can be diet-controlled), and a blood thinner if you have severe heart trouble or wound healing issues. Likewise, there are also a lot of medications out there for helping you lose weight. Medication is often given only after you fail to lose weight by joining a diet club or because your BMI is greater than or equal to 30.

More On Drugs

Drugs are prescribed when you need all of your mental energy for focusing on getting better and don’t have time to lose weight by routine exercise. Pills are usually taken thrice a day after meals. The pills help you lose weight without putting in much effort on your part. Prescription weight loss drugs are much safer the ones you find in stores or on the internet. Keep in mind that these are chemical drugs that have undergone many scientific studies and have been proven to work on your brain. When you eat food, fat is either digested or stored in the body. Stored fat, the type which isn’t immediately used for energy, is what makes people obese. The more fat you consume, the more it gets stored and the larger you become. Weight loss medication works by blocking some of the fat which never goes through digestion, and gets rid of it through waste.

By complementing these drugs with healthy diet and exercise, your weight loss will go a lot faster than originally planned. However, there are other weight loss pills on the internet and available in some stores that should not be used. These pills are usually designed to speed up your metabolism to burn the calories at greater speeds. This is not a healthy way to lose weight and these pills can become dangerously addictive. They can also fluctuate your energy levels, which is a bad sign for anyone who is suffering from a mental health disorder. Only drugs that are prescribed by your doctor to lose weight are 100% safe. By taking the medication prescribed to you, it means that you can focus on getting better mentally. When your psychiatrist or physician believes you are well enough to cope with the weight loss yourself, you will be discharged or referred to a long term prevention program.

Counseling

Counseling is an amazing opportunity to talk about your obesity issues and your mental health issues. If you are lucky enough you could find a group in your area that deals with mental health issues and obesity–all rolled into one. Counseling is often very helpful for any mental health issue, not just obesity. It’s a good way for discussing your problems and sharing it with everyone. Obesity victims sometimes get caught up ‘in their own mind’ and can’t see a way out of their problems, but counselors offer a fresh view of things and suggest different methods to cope with any mental health issues you may be experiencing as an obesity patient. They make you feel better mentally and physically and instill a great sense of hope deep inside of you. Once you realize that you can do something about your situation,