Obesity Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Obesity, including details on health, diet, prevention, exercise.

Taking action to lose weight: toward an understanding of individual differences.

Annunziato RA, Lowe MR

Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, One Gustave L. Levy Place, Box 1230, New York, NY 10029, USA. rachel.annunziato@mssm.edu

The purpose of the present study was to understand differences in obese/overweight individuals who do and do not seek ongoing external assistance for weight loss. Help-seeking was examined as a dichotomous and as a continuous variable. Measures of body mass index, comorbid medical conditions, socioeconomic status, psychological distress, disordered eating behavior, body image, and obesity-related knowledge were administered to a community sample of 120 overweight women (age: 22-65 y, BMI: 25-63 kg/m(2)). Fewer predictors of help-seeking were identified when measuring help-seeking as a dichotomy than when measuring it as a continuum. All predictors were from psychosocial domains, with obesity-related knowledge being the strongest, most consistent predictor. Help-seeking for weight control in a community sample of overweight and obese individuals appears to be motivated by psychological aspects of obesity, rather than obesity's physical or medical burden.

Published 5 March 2007 in Eat Behav, 8(2): 185-94.
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