Weight Maintenance - Does Not Trigger Psychologica - 2007/05/11 23:44
Prior studies have shown that individuals may be genetically predisposed to become overweight. Based on this finding, some researchers have suggested that attempts to lose weight (to drop below one’s genetically determined "setpoint weight") will inevitably lead to intense psychological pressures to regain the lost weight. In this study, we examined the level of psychological symptoms among registry members, all of whom have successfully lost weight and who are therefore likely to be below their "setpoint weight." Levels of depressive symptoms, general emotional distress, binge-eating and self-induced vomiting in registry members are considerably lower than the rates of these behaviors seen in psychiatric samples, and similar to rates seen in random samples of the general population. Thus, we found no evidence that successful maintenance of a weight loss is associated with clinically significant levels of psychological symptoms.
(Source: Klem, M.L., Wing, R.R., McGuire, M.T., Seagle, H.M., & Hill, J.O. Psychological symptoms in individuals successful at long-term maintenance of weight loss. Health Psychology, 1998, 17, 336-345.)
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