A new study points to an unexpected challenge for those who intend to lose weight:The people around you can consciously or unconsciously sabotage your efforts. The study also uncovered strategies people use to deal with problems when they're trying to lose weight and keep it off. For this study, 40 in-depth interviews were conducted with people who reported being overweight or obese, but felt themselves thin at the time of the interview. Twenty-one of the study participants were women, 19 were men, and the participants reported an average weight loss of 76.9 pounds. All 40 of the study participants reported that people spend their lives trying to belittle or undermine their weight loss efforts. However, the study found that participants used specific communication strategies to cope with the stigma and thus maintained their weight loss as well as their personal relationships.
The communication strategies fell into two different categories. The first category focused on the study participants helping other people "save their face," or not feel uncomfortable. The second category focused on harm reduction:the participants found ways to limit the discomfort people felt about an individual's weight loss and associated lifestyle changes.
Techniques used to avoid discomfort included telling other people about your intentions and motivations before they started losing weight. Study participants also report taking measures for lifestyle changes, such as eating smaller portions of unhealthy food at family gatherings, accepting food from people but not eating it (for example, taking something and telling them to eat it later), or Saving “cheat day” for a night out with friends. Meanwhile, techniques used to mitigate the discomfort tend to focus on making excuses for the changes in behavior.
