Psychological Interventions for A Selected Illness: Obesity in Adults
Introduction
Obesity remains a serious health challenge worldwide; however, it is more prevalent in developed countries than the rest of the world. Agha and Agha (2017) define obesity as an imbalance that exists between energy consumption and energy expenditure within an individual body. Sedentary lifestyle, genetic factors, and prolonged over-eating should not be assumed as the only factors that lead to obesity. Psychological processes and emotions are also significant causes of obesity; emotions such as anxiety, stress, sadness, or happiness often contribute to obesity in adults’ individuals. Obesity escalates the risks of developing severe health conditions such as heart illness, diabetes, hypertension, and sleep apnea. This implies an urgent need to control this epidemic, hence subsequent prevention of consequent illnesses. Looking at the possible psychological measures to curb the obesity epidemic, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) comes in hand as an effective intervention mechanism. Therefore, this paper aims to explore published empirical research on CBT as a psychotherapeutic intervention on obese adults.
Change Theory and the Identified Health Problem
As a psychological intervention mechanism, CBT has some specific character traits, which include structure, problem-solving, present orientation, as well as modification of dysfunctional thoughts and behaviors (McCullough et al. 2017). There are multiple derivations and processes associated with cognitive treatment. These psychotherapeutic treatments are based on two things. First is the cognitive formulation of a specific disorder, and secondly is the understanding and conceptualization of an individual subject (McCullough et al. 2017).
Regarding this approach, CBT as a psychological intervention is aimed at dysfunctional restructuring thoughts, and behavioral modifications are implemented to change inappropriate behaviors. Additionally, behavioral modifications are used to identify cognitive behaviors linked with particular lifestyle practices (Croker, 2017). The challenge of eating and maintaining living on a healthy diet can be associated with a conflict of goals. Such goals may be eating-health lifestyle habits while engaging in physical activities or eating sweet and pleasing junky food, which promotes weight gain and living comfortably with less physical training activities.
Challenges associated with eating healthy food and weight maintenance in an individual may have been influenced by cognitive distortions and cycles of un-appropriate behaviors. This means that CBT can be an appropriate approach to this illness among adults. It can be used to initiate change in behaviors and lifestyles; thus, it is essential to note that bodyweight control requires an all-inclusive approach. Lousy eating behaviors come along the way from the individual perspectives and motives to both their home and social surrounding, too (Brownell & Walsh, 2017). Adult individuals with obesity illness have a background condition associated with difficulty in maintaining proper weight just because of less involvement in activities that increase the metabolism rate. As a matter of fact, these individuals hardly have any underlying medical conditions that can prevent them from losing weight. However, the problem is their impaired thinking patterns. Once a positive cognitive pattern is introduced to such individuals, they will learn and change their mindset about eating healthy and an acceptable lifestyle pattern.
As a psychological intervention in obesity illness, CBT has been investigated several as a treatment diagnosis in adults’ individuals. Castelnuovo et al. (2017) investigated CBT intervention to treat obesity in adults; they found out that the intervention was effective. It helped improved food choice as well as increasing physical activity levels. From the study, the cognitive-behavioral therapy participants depicted an improvement in self-efficacy, great motives on achieving objectives on dieting and physical activities, and an actual intention to implementations. On the contrary, the control group was the opposite of these findings. Research shows that the therapy has the potential of bringing about a lasting cognitive behavioral modification and lifestyle changes, which can help obese individuals to start and maintain healthy living hence a reduced body mass index.
Application of the cognitive-behavioral intervention.
Hieneman (2015) explains that most of the people trying to maintain healthy eating habits do fails because they find themselves in environments that contain amply available unhealthy but attractive foods. Such environments tend to make people abandon healthy dieting and end up consuming unhealthy foods with high amounts of calories, which is what Hieneman explained to be a cognitive inhibition to weight loss objective. Either way, if an individual is really serious and has undergone cognitive-behavioral modification processes, they maintain a healthy dieting lifestyle even when exposed to environments that have too much stimulation to unhealthy dieting. Such individuals are only able to maintain a healthy dietary approach because they can control their thoughts.
In another recent study conducted by Dalle Grave et al. (2020), they found out that cognitive-behavioral therapy can even be personalized to give solutions to a specific individual based on their specific demands. These researchers conducted a systematic review of the scientific publications on psychotherapeutic interventions for individuals overweight adults. They concluded that for even better results, the CBT approach could be modified according to a specific person’s life and behavior pattern, hence producing more positive results. CBT has been highlighted in these studies more than other possible psychological interventions because the evidence supports its remedies to obesity. The other psychotherapeutic interventions, such as psychodynamic therapy, interpersonal psychotherapy, and problem-solving therapy, are less rigorously evaluated. Hence, they seem ineffective or better, less effective cognitive-behavioral therapy.
Typically, the proposed psychological intervention on controlling obesity; CBT projects make use of only food records. The food records are surrounded by the information on what people do eat, the time they eat, and the amount of food they are eating. Additionally, this intervention can enhance eating habits on the choice of healthy foods and provide strategies that help minimize contact with situations that promote unhealthy food consumption. Effective techniques provided along with this therapy include the idea of exercises and problem-solving training techniques. Other considerations will be cognitive changes and prevention of relapse.
In psychotherapeutic intervention, social skills development comes along as part of the therapy to improve the social and family environment. Such skills are evaluated to observe any change in interpersonal habits or environmental interaction during the actual treatment. Cognitive-behavioral therapy will also involve third parties such as relatives and friends, who are very close to obese patients. This is because the environment plays a significant role in this therapy. Therefore, close family members and friends are of great significance for a successful CBT process.
Conclusion
Cognitive-behavioral therapy is developed with the focus of altering behavior patterns from an internal and psychological point of view, thus providing psychotherapeutic solutions to various illnesses. With obese individuals, CBT mainly involves diet control, physical activity, and education on nutrition. This intervention has proved to be an effective solution for excessive weight gainers. Furthermore, cognitive-behavioral treatment has more benefits to offer. For instance, CBT also promotes responsibility, autonomy, and overall lifestyle changes to an individual. All these become incorporated into an individual’s mental activities.
References
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Castelnuovo, G., Pietrabissa, G., Manzoni, G. M., Cattivelli, R., Rossi, A., Novelli, M., Varallo, G., & Molinari, E. (2017). Cognitive-behavioral therapy to aid weight loss in obese patients: current perspectives. Psychology research and behavior management, 10, 165–173. https://doi.org/10.2147/PRBM.S113278
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Dalle Grave, R., Sartirana, M. & Calugi, S. Personalized cognitive-behavioral therapy for obesity (CBT-OB): theory, strategies, and procedures. BioPsychoSocial Med 14, 5 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13030-020-00177-9
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