About Weight Loss Surgery

Friends and Family

Obesity is a disease that affects not only the person with the disease but also his or her loved ones. It is frustrating to see someone you love hurt themselves with their eating addictions. Families and friends can feel desperate and helpless as they watch the one they love deteriorate before their eyes.

No amount of ridiculing or criticism will ever make anyone lose weight and keep it off! Tough love does not work in helping a person lose weight, it only helps to further diminish what is left of their self esteem.

Joking about weight can do real damage. Who is doing the laughing when a joke about weight is made? It is certainly not the person who is carrying it around. While jokes are usually hints coming from a place of deeper concern they only prompt a negative response.

Weight Issues
People who suffer from obesity may say the weight does not bother them and that they just enjoy eating but there are underlying issues they have not faced. Nowadays we understand the issues concerning obesity a little better than we used to. The truth is that people eat for emotional reasons and have to realize what drives them to do so before they can successfully lose the weight.

Support is critical when it comes to weight loss. When the obese person loses support from a spouse, children or other family members their anxiety leads to more eating which in turn produces more weight gain.

Friends and family need to encourage and in most cases participate in the weight loss process.

This may mean changing the eating habits in the household for all the members of the family.
Friends or family members can organize some type of exercise that can be done together such as walking, sports, swimming ect.

Realize it’s not your battle – Families and friends need to realize that love and support is the only help they should offer to someone suffering from obesity. The change has to come from the person themselves, in their own time. Once they understand what drives them to overeat they can take the steps necessary to conquer the disease.