October 26, 2014
CTW 1
Psychology behind Eating
According to the World Health Organization, 1 in 3 children in other countries are undernourished and underweight, whereas, in the United States, 1 in 3 children are overweight. They have calculated that the number of overweight Americans have more than doubled since 1980 to where 1.5 billion Americans are overweight with 500,00 being obese. Around the world, obesity is more deadly than being underweight, because of medical complications created by excessive weight kills more people than hunger. In medical terms, a person with a Body Mass Index (BMI) higher than 25 is overweight and with a BMI over 30 is obese. Obesity causes cardiovascular diseases, such as heart attacks and strokes, and diabetes, which nobody wants and can easily be avoided. I believe that exercise and healthy eating are needed to improve us as people. My most passionate activity is keeping my body in shape. Eating healthy and working out are extremely important to me because it gives me drive, keeps me motivated, and brings me happiness. Mentally, healthy eating and exercise provides us with more motivation and drive. Furthermore, taking care of our bodies can provide us with a higher self-confidence because we enjoy the way we look and are proud of what we have accomplished. On the other hand, poorly taking care of your body can put you in a unpleasant mood because of reflections on your body image and the gross, sluggish feeling from not eating well or exercising. From personal experience, when I don’t exercise or eat healthy, I feel sluggish and self-conscious about my figure. With that, knowing all of the benefits of a proper diet and regular exercise leads me to wonder what could possibly be the reason as to why people today continue to harm their bodies with unhealthy foods and lack of exercise. After much research I believe that the reasons as to why people don’t take good care of their bodies is because of psychological reasons that people have inherited during their childhood. One psychological explanation that leads people to eat unhealthy and not exercise regularly is depression. Depression can be caused by a number of factors, one such factor being bullying. In 2010 at Florida State University, a study led by psychologist Angelina Sutin found that overweight people who faced weight discrimination were over two times more likely to become obese by the end of the study. This study illustrates that instead of motivating individuals to lose weight, fat discrimination (bullying) actually leads to a higher risk of obesity. The whole process of eating out of depression can be demonstrated perfectly through the case of a woman who was recently dumped by a boyfriend. In this case, the woman is depressed and feels bad about herself, so in order to cope with this sadness she has to find something that will make her happy. For a woman in this situation, the norm is to sit on the couch eating a tub of ice cream watching netflix for hours but this can be very unhealthy and lead to the formation of bad habits of eating anytime you feel the least bit down on yourself. Another aspect that leads to unhealthy living habits is childhood upbringings. One strategy that parents and sports team coaches use is