Achieving a healthy weight is an important goal, but it's possible to take your desire to lose weight too far. A healthy sense of self-esteem prevents you from making unwise choices, such as dieting in an unsafe manner. Instead of comparing yourself to others, concentrate on recognizing your individual strengths. Everyone has weak moments, so don't let past failures get you down.
Function
Self-esteem is your measure of your own worth. In the context of weight loss, you should measure yourself against healthy standards to determine whether you are at the correct weight. But outside factors, such as advertisements and the media, can cloud your judgment, causing you to measure yourself against unreasonable and unhealthful standards. Instead of comparing yourself to professional models and movie stars, talk to your doctor about a proper weight for your body type.
Extreme Dieting
If you let low self-esteem take control of your thoughts and actions, the desire to lose weight can lead to severe problems, such as anorexia or bulimia. Anorexics are paranoid about their weight and often diet in an unhealthful manner. Bulimics also have a distorted self-image. They often diet as anorexics do, but they also binge, eating huge amounts of food at a time. Binges are often followed by a purge, or regurgitation of all they have eaten to prevent the body from digesting the extra calories. Both conditions pose serious risks to the body, including malnutrition, cardiac arrest and atrophy.
Difficulty Dieting
Low self-esteem can also cause you to participate in emotional eating, or turning to food as a way for dealing with your feelings of worthlessness. For example, if you are discouraged about your excess weight and believe you are too weak to do anything about it, your lack of faith in yourself might cause you to despair and give up your diet. Emotional eating can also happen if you're bored, feeling guilty or anxious about stressful events in your life.
Expert Insight
Losing weight should be about becoming healthy, not giving into unhealthful urges or trying to measure up to unreasonable standards. If you feel that low self-esteem is causing you to participate in unhealthy activities, such as extreme dieting, binging or purging, contact a psychologist. Discuss your self-esteem issues, and ask for recommendations about how to achieve a healthier frame of mind and pursue a healthier course of action with your weight-loss program.
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