Psychological Treatment for Obesity

This assignment discusses how psychological interventions can help in handling obesity and how such approach help in meeting goals effectively by the patients. It also highlights the importance of cognitive behavioral therapy in managing obesity and how it can be combined with dietary modifications and physical exercises for better outcomes.

Running head: PSYCHOLOGICAL TREATMENT FOR OBESITY
PSYCHOLOGICAL TREATMENT FOR OBESITY
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PSYCHOLOGICAL TREATMENT FOR OBESITY
Obesity is a chronic condition that remains intricately associated with different types of
risk factors of different medical complications and co-morbidities. It might result in the
cardiovascular disorders, some specific forms of cancer, dyslipidemia, hypercholesterolemia,
type-e diabetes (Jelalien et al., 2016). It also results in the occurrence of the obstructive sleep
apnoea syndrome as well as various types of psychosocial issues and even psychopathological
disorders. This assignment will show how psychological interventions can help in handling such
disorders and how such approach help in meeting goals effectively by the patients.
Researchers are of the opinion that obesity is a highly complex disorder that is multi-
factorial; it might be genetic biological, familial, social, cultural, and behavioral as well as
environmental as all these factors can influence the occurrence of the disorders in different ways.
Over the years, the biomedical model of care had made the healthcare professionals only provide
interventions that helped in managing the biological determinists of health (Castelnuovo et al.,
2017). However, the weight of the patients still created a concern as the interventions could not
help in reducing weight completely as expected by the professionals. These treatment
interventions often created pressures on the patients making them frustrated when they noticed
that interventions are not being fruitful. This made the researchers try to find out solutions
through some of the best intervenstions, which can handle the situation effectively.
Bio-psycho-social model of care has been introduced in the present decade that aims not
only on the biological determinants but also on the social and psychological factors that also
contribute to the occurrence of the disorders. The social interventions taken by the policy
makers, healthcare workers, social workers and the governmental departments had helped in
development of awareness on the disorders (Manzoni et al., 2016). However, recent complaints
have been done which shows that the patients are losing their motivations midway or they are not

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being able to successfully modify their behaviors in a way that would help in reducing their
weight. Development of diet plans, creating exercise regimes, undertaking physical activities,
surgeries, pharmacological interventions and many others are seeing to fail and the main reason
behind these is that the affected individuals are not able to change their behaviors as flexibly as
required to suit the expected lifestyle of living (daLuz et al., 2017). In such situations, the
psychological interventions like the cognitive behavioral therapy is found to be one of the most
successful intervention that help such patients to align with their action plan and reach the set
goals and objectives.
Studies have shown that emotions are one of the most important aspects that determine
the eating behaviors. They have concluded that reduction of the “emotional eating” and
incorporation of the flexible pattern of the dietary restraints can prove to be significant in the
sustaining of the weight loss. People’s thoughts as well as the feelings are also seen to affect
their eating behaviors and therefore lifestyle interventions and weight management programs
will not bring any changes and outcomes until the emotional and behaviors of such affected
individuals are handled with efficacy. In this arena, cognitive behavioral therapy has been seen to
bring out positive outcomes (Cooney et al., 2018). This therapy is mainly based on the principle
thoughts have the ability of controlling feelings and behaviors. This therapy mainly helps the
patients by making them aware of their negative thoughts and helping them to respond to them in
the positive ways. . one interesting study has shown that appetite based cognitive behavioral
therapy had helped in reducing more weight in consideration to that pf the physical exercise
based cognitive behavioral therapy and similar studies are still conducted to reach to a
conclusion about its affectivity in present day in managing obesity. However, evidence based

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studies are highly supportable of this intervention and so healthcare professionals can undertake
such therapy to help individuals change their behaviors and manage their weight effectively.
Dalle Grave et al. (2017) have conducted a randomized controlled trial taking 88 patients
who were suffering from morbid obesity. They had inculcated a 6-step procedure of the
Multistep cognitive behavioral therapy for obesity (CBT-OB) which included physical
activity as well as dietary recommendations with specific cognitive behavioral strategies.
The results showed loss of weight of the patients by 15% after a total of about 12 months
with no tendency of the participants to regain weight between the 6 and 12 months. This
treatment showed promising long-term results in the management of the disorders and this
evidence suggests that the healthcare professionals can follow this approach in their practices
to help patients affected with the disorder. However, studies have been found in good
numbers that have shown questioned the ability of the CBT alone to help in management of
weight of the patients in treatment of obesity. The studies have shown better effects on the
combined effects of CBT with that of dietary modifications and physical exercise in
comparison when CBT is only done by the patients (Palavras et al., 2015). Therefore,
professionals also need to instruct the patients to maintain diet and undertake physical
exercises that aid in weight management.
Another study conducted by Faulconbridge et al. (2018) was seen to conduct an
interest approach where seventy-six participants were taken who had obesity and depression
both. Behavioral weight control therapy was taken to manage obesity and cognitive
behavioral therapy was taken to manage depression, and they were individually provided to
groups of participants. Some number or participants were exposed to both the treatments

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combined. Mood, weight and cardiovascular disorders issues and risk factors were assessed
throughout 18 group treatment sessions over about 20 weeks. It was found that participants
in the combined treatment were seen to lose more weight than those who were assigned to
the other two modes of treatment groups. However, depression levels and risk for
cardiovascular disorders were seen to reduce on all the three groups. This showed that
combined therapies of behavioral weight control (BWC) and CBT; both should be
implemented. The individuals should do this for effectively losing and management of
weight.
From the above discussion, it becomes clear that lifestyle management alone is not
sufficient for reducing the weight of the patient and maintaining better quality life.
Healthcare professionals need to provide psychological interventions that help in modifying
their behaviors in ways by which they align with the best practices and can take up habits
and exhibit behaviors that are healthy and restrict them from binge eating. Hence, CBT is
found to be extremely helpful however, it alone cannot bring bets effects and should be
always accompanies with dietary modification and physical exercises.

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References:
Castelnuovo, G., Pietrabissa, G., Manzoni, G. M., Cattivelli, R., Rossi, A., Novelli, M., ... &
Molinari, E. (2017). Cognitive behavioral therapy to aid weight loss in obese patients:
current perspectives. Psychology research and behavior management, 10, 165.
Cooney, L. G., Milman, L. W., Hantsoo, L., Kornfield, S., Sammel, M. D., Allison, K. C., ... &
Dokras, A. (2018). Cognitive-behavioral therapy improves weight loss and quality of life
in women with polycystic ovary syndrome: a pilot randomized clinical trial. Fertility and
sterility.
da Luz, F. Q., Swinbourne, J., Sainsbury, A., Touyz, S., Palavras, M., Claudino, A., & Hay, P.
(2017). HAPIFED: a Healthy APproach to weIght management and Food in Eating
Disorders: a case series and manual development. Journal of eating disorders, 5(1), 29.
Dalle Grave, R., Sartirana, M., El Ghoch, M., & Calugi, S. (2017). Personalized multistep
cognitive behavioral therapy for obesity. Diabetes, metabolic syndrome and obesity:
targets and therapy, 10, 195.
Faulconbridge, L. F., Driscoll, C. F., Hopkins, C. M., Bailer Benforado, B., Bishop‐Gilyard, C.,
Carvajal, R., ... & Wadden, T. A. (2018). Combined Treatment for Obesity and
Depression: A Pilot Study. Obesity, 26(7), 1144-1152.
Jelalian, E., Jandasek, B., Wolff, J. C., Seaboyer, L. M., Jones, R. N., & Spirito, A. (2016).
Cognitive-behavioral therapy plus healthy lifestyle enhancement for depressed,
overweight/obese adolescents: results of a pilot trial. Journal of Clinical Child &
Adolescent Psychology, 1-10.

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Manzoni, G. M., Cesa, G. L., Bacchetta, M., Castelnuovo, G., Conti, S., Gaggioli, A., ... & Riva,
G. (2016). Virtual reality–enhanced cognitive–behavioral therapy for morbid obesity: a
randomized controlled study with 1 year follow-up. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and
Social Networking, 19(2), 134-140.
Palavras, M. A., Hay, P., Touyz, S., Sainsbury, A., da Luz, F., Swinbourne, J., ... & Claudino, A.
(2015). Comparing cognitive behavioural therapy for eating disorders integrated with
behavioural weight loss therapy to cognitive behavioural therapy-enhanced alone in
overweight or obese people with bulimia nervosa or binge eating disorder: study protocol
for a randomised controlled trial. Trials, 16(1), 578.