There must be many good people. “There should be a lot of a good person” See what “There should be a lot of a good person” in other dictionaries

The disease "obesity" has psychological prerequisites. At present, this idea is banal and obvious.

However, half a century ago, such a statement would have caused considerable resistance from both professionals and patients.

A course in psychosomatics that I studied in the 1980s. at the Faculty of Psychology of Moscow State University, did not even touch on the topic “Psychological prerequisites for obesity” - such a popular one today.

Currently, there are many approaches to the study and correction of the psychological prerequisites for obesity. I will try to outline the main ones that representatives of almost all areas agree with.

So, among the psychological factors that lead to obesity, psychologists most often note low self-esteem, weak self-control, low stress tolerance.

Borderline factors such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety-depressive disorder, which have a huge impact on the risk of obesity, are likely to require the inclusion of psychiatric specialists in treatment.

LOW SELF-ESTEEM

How to determine

The man apologizes even for asking an extra question. He sits down awkwardly, as if afraid to take up too much space. In response to a compliment, he says: “Oh, I just washed my hair today.”

Sometimes low self-esteem manifests itself paradoxically - a person behaves defiantly, as if trying the world around him: “Is it possible?”. At the same time, it is possible to determine that his self-esteem and confidence are low by the fact that he behaves completely differently with the “strong” and “weak” of this world and is instantly “blown away”, having received a rebuff.

How to influence

Celebrate his progress in treatment. At the same time, focus not on praise (“well done, you try”), but on objective facts (“today your weight is less by X, your Y indicator has changed”). The fact is that praise can make a patient with low self-esteem feel uncomfortable or doubtful, he can begin to apologize and make excuses. And objective information will act in addition to his "complexes" and will strengthen his Adult position.

Help him build his confidence and determination to succeed. To do this, you can use "coaching" questions. Coaching questions and coaching conversations enable the patient to come to the necessary decisions and conclusions and take responsibility. Also, this approach enhances self-control, which we will discuss later.

WEAK SELF-CONTROL

How to determine

In the journal “Practical Dietology”, No. 1(9) in the article “Responsibility for Health”, we discussed the issue of self-control (you can purchase a printed version of the journal with this material in the online store www.argumentkniga.ru, also read the publication available on the website of the publication www.. ed.). You can also view the health control test again there.

It is possible to determine the low level of subjective control in a patient without a test by the way he talks about himself and others, about achievements and failures.

His typical phrases are:

• If I hadn't been interrupted, I would have done it.
• How can I not eat if they are always buying delicious food.
• It's just lucky for me.

How to influence

First, you can help the patient identify and feel their area of ​​responsibility. You can also use the "coaching" questions above to do this.

Secondly, consider the stereotypes of patients regarding health, which we discussed in the journal No. 4 (8) in the article "Patient Stereotypes". There are two stereotypes that are especially pronounced and impede treatment with poor self-control in patients with a tendency to obesity: reactivity (“If you can’t, then you really want to”) and feedback delay (“I’ll feel bad later, but that’s later”).

Recall briefly:

1. Reactivity (“If you can’t, then you really want to”).

Reactivity is especially manifested in prohibitions. Therefore, it is better to shift the focus from the prohibition of the harmful to the promotion of the useful. For example, instead of the phrase “You can’t eat sweets,” it’s better to say: “Eat sweets after protein foods. If you eat the amount of protein your body needs while eating, then you will not have the desire to eat a lot of sweets.

2. Feedback delay ("I'll feel bad later, but that's later").

Feedback delay is that forbidden goodies bring tangible pleasures right now, but harm is not obvious at all (no one gains critical weight the day after eating a huge cake). At the same time, the beneficial actions recommended require efforts right now, and valuable results will be borne in the indefinite future.

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ROLE OF THE FAMILY

“The first study on the role of the family in the development and maintenance of overeating and obesity was conducted by Leann L. Birch in 1987. According to the author, food is often used by parents to reinforce desirable or undesirable behavior in children. Parents, by rewarding their children with sweets, increase the appeal of sweets in general. Specific interactions between parents and children also explain other forms of learned behavior, such as “always eat to the end”,” note the authors of a review of studies on family psychological aspects of the problem of obesity, published in the scientific and practical journal “Practical Medicine. Neurology. Psychiatry” dated April 23, 2012

Therefore, it is necessary to approximate feedback.

Explain how the consequences of violating the recommendations of a dietitian (almost imperceptibly so far) are manifested and how compliance with the recommendations has a positive effect. And measure, measure, measure: centimeters at the waist and hips, body mass index, etc. This is the only way to make sure that in the mind of the patient, instead of a distant vague goal, there is a clear path with marks that he sees every day.

LOW STRESS RESISTANCE

How to determine

The manifestations of both the current state of stress and general low stress tolerance can be very different. We have discussed them in part in articles on stress in previous issues of the magazine.

Among the external manifestations can be both physiological (for example, vegetovascular) and psychological.

Thus, patients who are stuck in the position of the Parent are significantly subject to stress. You will notice them by the fact that they always know how it should be, and constantly evaluate everyone and everything. They experience excessive stress due to the fact that they “know and can do everything”, so they gain a huge number of tasks and responsibilities, which they then cannot cope with. In addition, they are full of rigid expectations. The gap between these expectations and reality brings additional suffering.

How to influence

Correction of the patient's low stress resistance requires special psycho-corrective work. In the course of his communication with such patients, a nutritionist can soften his stuck on the position of the Parent, bring the interlocutor to the Adult position.

To do this, in the journal No. 1 (5) in the article. Communication tool. we practiced the technique of questions—open, neutral questions about a fact. For example, “What was the highest pressure you had?”, “In what year did your weight reach 100 kg?”.

GROW MODEL

One of the most common coaching techniques is the GROW model. This model, proposed by J. Whitmore, is based on a certain sequence of posing effective questions. J. Whitmore considers it fundamentally important to start with the definition of a goal, and not with an analysis of the current situation, which can become a brake on setting a goal.

Adapted from John Whitmore's book High Performance Coaching, published in 1992.

Nutritionist's word

So, we have considered with you such factors as low self-esteem, weak self-control and low stress resistance. You can use techniques to identify these factors and recommend exposure. Because the word of a nutritionist working with an obese patient has not only an informational, but also a psychotherapeutic effect, which, according to modern ideas, is absolutely necessary for the patient.

Often contrary to popular saying,
in people who are overweight,
there is an inner feeling of one's own "badness" and worthlessness.

This is a very deep feeling, which is sometimes presented immediately, and sometimes it is carefully hidden under a mass of extra pounds, as well as under various compensatory activities.

Self-esteem issues for obese people are a very delicate and painful topic.

If they decide to ask for help, each time I am painfully confronted with how vulnerable and sensitive at heart they turn out to be.

It sometimes seems that some fat men are covered with a "behemoth" skin and do not feel anything. They can push and not notice, behave like an elephant in a china shop, not hear and not respond to the comments of others. Some use a bubbly sense of humor and laugh off painful and hurtful situations.

But all this is ultimately done in order to protect the vulnerable inner child who cannot fully manifest in adulthood, since he does not feel safe in it.

It is in the family that a person who comes into this world gets the opportunity to feel that he is alive, that he is valuable and loved by himself. He is reflected in his mother's eyes and, in a good scenario, reads his mother's message in them: "I love you, you are good, you are alive and real!"

This often does not happen for various reasons. A child whose mother was insensitive to his needs and conditions is constantly in anxiety. It is difficult for him to understand what is happening to him, and how to calm this anxiety.

Either he is tired and wants to sleep now, or he is offended, or he is very bored and nervous because his mother did not come for him on time. All these feelings gather into one big lump of anxiety, and the child does not know how to deal with it.

The child grows, and his anxieties grow. Here he is no longer a child, but a real adult, but having no mechanism inside that would help to adequately process anxiety, he resorts to a mechanism that is both pathological and natural at the same time. He eats his anxiety.

Why is food addiction so difficult to treat?
If we are dealing with drug addiction, we can at least call the enemy by name and declare a fight against him.

It is impossible to call food an enemy - something without which no person can live on this planet. It turns out to be difficult to separate what is the vital need of the organism, satisfies the natural hunger, and what the hunger for love and acceptance shifts to, which simply dulls the strongest anxiety for a while.

To avoid confronting his own "badness", a person uses numerous strategies.

At best, it develops vigorous activity and achieves universal recognition. He seems to want to prove to himself and others that there are really a lot of him, he has great weight and significance.

But if you look closely at these attempts to increase your own self-esteem, they will always have a shade of "unsatisfied". The achieved results and recognition seem to be not enough, you need to prove your exclusivity and extraordinaryness again and again every day. For others to notice and appreciate...

Any inattention is very painful. A person can hide his vulnerability, dress it in a comic form, not realize how much he depends on the opinions of others.

A person may not feel the painful pricks of wounded pride, “being offended is stupid!”. Instead, he will feel an irresistible desire to retire and eat his favorite treats or just eat as much as possible, calming down from the very process of eating and from the feeling of fullness in the stomach.

Or, on the contrary, an obese person in every possible way avoids society, the very possibility of colliding with others, communication, although deep down he terribly longs for it and needs it.

He absolutely does not believe in himself, he is afraid to compete and achieve something. The anxiety from the fact that they can laugh at him, somehow look the wrong way, say something wrong, is huge. And a person tries in every way to avoid it.

It is difficult for him to enter into close spontaneous relationships with others, as he is only focused on picking up negative signals about himself.

It is difficult for him to separate his state from the state of the one with whom he comes into contact. It is difficult to catch the moment when one's own suspicion and anticipation of hostility become so unbearable that they are projected into the other, and the other is then seen as hostile and attacking.

The fat layer seems to help to fence off a little from the damaging effects of the outside world. serves as a kind of airbag. In the end, all your difficulties can be attributed to this very extra weight. After all, if it were not for him, then it would be possible to go out into people, and there would be no problems with communication ...

Here we come to where we started. In the well-known saying that there should be a lot of a good person, excess weight performs an important function.

He builds up and increases the volume of a person so that no one would guess how small and lost he sometimes feels inside. Either it performs a protective function and, as it were, does not allow entering into relationships that a person does not know how to build, and is very afraid of being rejected in them.

And many other functions carry extra weight ...

WHO IS HAPPINESS AND WHO IS DEPRESSION

No wonder the proverb "There should be many good people" was born. Observant people have long noticed that fat people, as a rule, are the soul of the company. Cheerful, cheerful, kind. And now these character traits have been confirmed by genetic tests.

“Fat people are less likely than thin people to feel sad and moping,” says study leader Professor David Meir from McMaster University (Canada).

He and his colleagues analyzed 17,200 DNA samples taken from study participants from 21 countries. And they found that the so-called obesity gene FTO, which is responsible for the development of obesity, is also a "happiness gene" - it reduces the risk of developing depression by 8 percent.

Special tests and surveys have shown that people with the FTO gene are more optimistic than their skinny peers.

By the way, maybe because of their kindness, people gain weight. Such a paradoxical hypothesis was put forward by scientists from the National Institute of Aging (USA). For almost 50 years, they scrupulously collected information about two thousand earthlings. We studied their character, habits, inclinations, and at the same time fluctuations in weight. And an amazing fact turned out: the character of a person influenced his figure.

So, it turned out that extroverts certainly gain weight. Volunteers who were distinguished by high emotionality, openness, friendliness, weighed an average of 10 kg more than introverts - closed, non-impulsive people. However, the reason for this phenomenon is not yet clear.

HIPS ARE A POOL OF INTELLIGENCE

Large breasts, thin waist, wide, rich hips attract men's looks. And, as a rule, they are in demand among true connoisseurs of female beauty. But, as it turned out recently, it's not just about the external effect. And not that a woman with more pronounced forms is better able to bear children, as previously thought.

Scientists from the University of California at Santa Barbara and the University of Pittsburgh, having examined and tested 16,000 volunteers, came to the conclusion that the intellectual abilities of curvy women are much higher than thin ones. Moreover, their children are born smarter.

“Women’s thighs contain omega-3 fatty acids, which contribute to the development of the brain, first of the mother, and then of the child,” says one of the researchers, Steven Galin. – Men react because it is important for reproduction.

However, scientists emphasize that it is the fat on the hips that contributes to the increase in intelligence. And the one at the waist contains a lot of omega-6 fatty acids. And the mind does not add. And the men don't respond.

“By the way,” says Galina’s colleague William Lassek, “children born to skinny teenage mothers do worse on cognitive tests because they didn’t have enough omega-3s in their thighs.

AND AT THIS TIME

If there is a malfunction in the body, then no diets will help.

Being full isn't so bad. However, most would like to lose weight. Nothing will come of it if you don't try. In lazy people, the body perceives extra pounds as the norm. Until the end of days, nothing will help such a fat man to lose weight - neither physical activity, nor all kinds of diets.

“The subconscious does not allow a person to lose kilograms and avoid their return,” says study leader Malcolm Lowe from the University of Michigan. - As soon as a person gets fat, the brain is “reprogrammed” and gets used to the new image of “beautiful and moderately well-fed”. It's incredibly difficult to convince him.

In life, we find different workarounds and come up with many excuses in order not to deviate from the usual way of life in favor of a more useful one. Some of them are firmly included in our everyday vocabulary and become winged. For example, the popular excuse “There should be many good people!” Why do we say so?

The picture of “good people who should be many” is to attract attention.

An oversized man with a beer belly is sitting in the corridor of the district clinic and thoughtfully counting something on a calculator. A familiar nurse comes up to him and asks: “What are you doing, Van?” And Vanya looks up and says thoughtfully: “Yes, I just came from a gastroenterologist, he did an examination and said that my weight does not match my height, like I have obesity. Here, I think, how much I need to grow up to match "

The saying that a good person should be a lot came to us from antiquity and initially it meant something else. From ancient times in Russia, the recipe for health was also known: to engage in physical labor, eat a lot of meat, honey and porridge, and drink a lot of milk. Following this tradition, thin boys grew up into healthy, strong men, who waved their swords like a reed, and bent horseshoes, and walked on a bear with their bare hands. In general, can you imagine a thin Russian hero? Of course, in Russian villages and lazy fat people came across, but this was rather an exception to the rule.

Now, fullness does not always mean strength. With the advent of such benefits of civilization as machine tools, computers, cars, people began to move less and engage in physical labor. Culinary traditions have also changed, with supermarkets and fast food outlets popping up, selling greasy or chemical-laden foods. All this has led to the spread of the disease of the age of information technology - obesity.

Sorry, but I will call a spade a spade. It's one thing - a strong, strong man, and another thing - a weak fat man. Now fat people rule the world. Modern fat men build their business, make important decisions, write programs and books, create the most complex drawings and conduct unique research, and at the same time they can never pull themselves up on the horizontal bar, and when climbing stairs they are haunted by excruciating shortness of breath. Physically weak, with flabby muscles, with a sagging belly and female breasts, with high blood pressure, suffering from problems with digestion, the spine and the cardiovascular system, with halitosis - and this person should be a lot? Not at all.

At heart, almost any fat man dreams of a beautiful, muscular body, but he cannot always do something. Only a few have the willpower to overcome themselves, to change their beliefs and lifestyle in favor of health. The rest only sigh and hide behind the words: There should be a lot of a good person!