Disclaimer: Although the title says factors of weight, these factors also affect over-all health and fitness.
Before getting into the actual dieting and exercising part, I recommend one to read the following. It is a list of what is affecting and what can affect one’s health and fitness. If you have ever thought to yourself “Why is it so hard to lose weight?” or “Bakit ang hirap maging fit?!” then continue reading. You just might find surprising factors affecting you that you’re not even aware of.
Distinguishing between hunger and eating
One factor that can affect your weight is that you don’t know if you really are hungry. Sometimes we eat because of habit, because it’s our break time for example. We might just experience a craving or taste of food - we just want the sensory experience provided by food (in short, kasi masarap).We might eat when we see our friends eating. We might reach for that bag of chips simply because we are bored.
Hunger is different. Hunger is a biological need. I read something that goes something like “If you’re not hungry enough to eat an apple, then you’re not really hungry”. The accuracy of that line still needs support. I mean, what if you really like apples? But anyway, I think there is some truth behind it. It treats food as a need for survival. It simply means that when you are experiencing real hunger, you eat the food for energy and not for the flavor or for the social experience with your friends.
Some people might look at hunger as their enemy. They equate satisfying hunger with gaining weight. But remember, being hungry does not immediately mean you will eat bad. In the end, you still have a choice what food you put on your plate.
This distinction between the two also involves issues of control. If we say that we eat only because we are hungry, we are not taking responsibility for our behaviour; we are blaming our biology. When we accept the idea that we at for reasons other than hunger, we implicitly make the assumption that we have some control. Some people assume they stop when they are full. It is linked to insulin and cholecystokinin that are released during digestion. But as we all know, some people still eat past that.
Eating is a sensory experience.
We eat food not only because of the taste but to experience texture as well. Because of a food’s palatability of food that makes us want to eat more of the bad stuff. Simply because fat and sugar are delicious. If the taste (sweet, fatty) is enhanced, humans and animals eat more.
Another factor is learning. Learned component statistics indicated that overweight children are likely to have overweight parents. This can also be because of genetics. However, those statistics also showed that the children’s weight “stabilizes” when they move out of the household when they are older, indicating that it is more due to the environment and not genetics. Children are taught to not waste food by eating what is on the plate. This leads to consuming more calories than required.
Today, a thin and lean figure is the ideal. As we can see in Vogue covers and practically in all the ads, this is what is “in” in today’s culture. However, before, a bigger body is sought after. This is because the larger the man’s wife, the more he was perceived to be a good provider.
Programs combining low calorie food and intensive education and behaviour modification. Main problem for overweight person is to learn new patterns of eating that will not only lead to an immediate weight loss but also maintain new weight. Dieters need a plan that will enable them to acquire a new set of habits. Many diets can result in weight loss; the problem is to keep from gaining weight back.
Genetics is also a strong factor. It is partly because of the hereditary contribution that obesity, with its implications for health, is difficult to treat. Because of genetics, weight loss is rarely maintained no matter if it is surgery or low calorie diets.
The rats experiment can be explained through biology.
When the body is deprived of food, the metabolic rate tends to decline. Dieting also often produces a craving for restricted foods, often high calorie food.
This is the increased metabolic efficiency when one restricts him/herself to severe calorie constriction. Many people who go on fad diets like the cabbage soup diet or lemon water diet will most probably lose weight and get the body they desire. However, once they stop eating they will gain the all that weight back – and more! – and fast! In an experiment, rats were fed to become obese.[8] It took 46 days before they were obese. Then they were starved until they go back to their normal weight. For a person, this is the part where they subscribe to an extremely low calorie diet like the ones stated before. Once the rats reached their normal weight, they were again fed regularly. It only took 14 days for them to become obese again.
Anabolism (Caloric Thrift)
According to the famine hypothesis, humans have developed several mechanisms to ensure survival in condition where the food supply is unreliable:
1. A mechanism to deal with the lack of food. This mechanism turns down the thermostat so that we don’t use as much energy. The deceleration of metabolism is referred to as anabolism or caloric thrift.
2. A mechanism to store food when it is available. The extra food is stored in the form of fat.
3. A mechanism to prevent the buildup of excessive amount of fat. Excessive fat would hinder the individual’s mobility and thus be nonadaptive. This mechanism is the acceleration of metabolism, which is referred to as catabolism or caloric waste. In this state, energy is spent more freely.
sight and smell of food and external cues. Many clinics encourage their clients to listen to their bodies’ needs.
No direct links have been established between emotional disorders and over eating. Do we eat more when we are depressed stressed or anxious? If you are unsure if this applies to you, why not observe yourself? Why do you eat? Is it because there is an exam coming up or is it because you have a problem? Self-monitoring is a very effective way to achieve your goals. So make sure to become aware of your habits.
Another aspect of cognitive is that we need to guard ourselves against putting ourselves in situations where our attention may become diverted. The ability to self-regulate food intake can be conceptualized in terms of one’s ability to control attention. Meaning, you should not eat in front of a TV or be on your phone while eating. This is because these activities might distract you. You might not realize you are full already but you keep eating because your other senses are distracted.
Robert Franken, Human Motivaton 6th ed (Belmont: Thomson Wadsworth, 2007).
Hugh Wagner, The Physiobiology of Human Motivation (New York: Routledge, 1999).
