The average dieter tries losing weight more than once. In fact, many individuals try several different weight loss programs without success. With each failure, they blame lack of self-control or even the diet itself. To achieve permanent weight loss, you need long-term nutritional changes, but effective programs aren't easy if you are the only one making the change.
Weight Loss Management Programs Impacted by Family and Friends
Typical diet programs include obstacles such as temptation and feelings of denial or restriction that can interfere with the effectiveness of your plan as well as meaningful transformation. However, they are not the only negative forces you face. Family members not interested in weight loss and healthy diet, or who don't support your chosen plan, have an impact on the diet’s success or failure. If overweight family members choose to continue embracing unhealthy habits, the impact is even greater.
In many families, if mom is dieting, then daughter is too. This tendency creates another problem, a collective mindset where the daughter performs as expected rather than doing what she desires, or believes. This type of behavior also spills over onto the daughter’s circle of friends as well.
Family and friends influence your attitudes and behavior. This influence is so strong that often individuals choose friends with the same attitudes and beliefs. This leads to similar ideas about body size, losing weight, self-esteem, and the value placed upon thinness. While unsupportive individuals provide many opportunities for temptation and reminders of restriction, the major challenge comes from human nature’s tendency to follow, rather than lead.
Effective Weight Loss Programs Hindered by Human Needs and Fears
Environment is a powerful force, but its contagious, rippling effect is not always recognized. One of man’s basic needs is to belong. This need can often cause you to worry about what other people think. When you choose to not stand out or be different, you compromise the effectiveness of your program. This occurs because friends stick together. Even if a member of the group attempts to break away and do something different, herd mentality will take over.
Like sheep, when one breaks from the fold to investigate something new, someone will come back to nudge the wanderer into complying. It’s the same for people. When you allow the beliefs and attitudes of friends and family to control your life, the fears of not belonging, of not being accepted, and being alone and rejected take over. Due to the importance you place on being a part of that circle, you may return to eating habits more in line with the way everyone else eats, causing your weight loss management program to fail.
Weight Loss Solutions Begin With Taking Personal Responsibility
Man has a strong need for enduring, close relationships, and uses friends and family to fulfill that desire. To avoid rejection, he conforms to group standards, spoken or unspoken, and constantly seeks to make favorable impressions on others. It is a quest for acceptance, but based on the fear of what others will think if he attempts to stand up and do something different.
Becoming aware of this fear is the first step in any attempt at change, but nothing will be different until you come to a point in your life where your need for achievement is stronger than your need to belong. When you begin taking personal responsibility for your chosen solution, you will also begin to successfully lose weight. However, no one is going to make that change for you. It has to come from your inner desires.
How to Achieve Permanent Weight Loss
When you stop playing the victim and stop participating in herd mentality, you can then make appropriate healthy changes that will result in permanent, effective weight loss. The most important change you can make is to become aware of your fears, take personal responsibility for your chosen weight loss program, stop being a follower, and start living the healthy lifestyle you desire; regardless of what anyone else thinks.
When you place the appropriate focus on an effective weight management program, positive changes can affect dozens of people. These positive changes can include family, friends, and beyond.
References:
National Eating Disorder Information Center, “Friendship, Body Image and Dieting in Teenage Girls: A Research Report”, Susan Paxton, PhD, Psychology Dept. University of Melbourne Australia (accessed April 18, 2010)
cbsnews.com, “Fear Factor: How Herd Mentality Drives Us,” Josh Landis, Oct. 18, 2008 (accessed April 18, 2010)
Myers, David G., Exploring Psychology, Worth Publishers, 7th edition, February 2007
Vickie Ewell - Vickie has worked with autistic individuals for 9 years. She has celiac disease and specializes in gfcf living.
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