Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Weight Loss Camps for Adults

Weight loss camps for adults exist because diets are an incomplete solution for addressing the problems that people who are overweight face.

In America, the National Institute of Health tells us that the failure rates for people who are trying to permanently lose weight is 95%.  Only one out of every twenty people will be successful at changing their health and weight permanently by taking weight loss pills, going on a diet, etc. 

The reason being is that a diet only changes what you eat; It does not change WHY you eat. 

If the why is not addressed then permanent weight loss can never be achieved.  We are not like animals, eating only because we are hungry.   Human beings eat for a multitude of reasons of which hunger is only the start;  we eat for pleasure,  we eat to connect with others, we eat to push others away, we eat out of boredom, we eat out of habit, we eat to cope with stress, we eat because we feel good, we eat because we feel bad, we eat to protect ourselves and we eat because it (food) is there!

When you look at that long list of why people eat, the predominant reason why we eat has nothing to do with hunger and more to do with our feelings.  Going on a diet does nothing to address this relationship we all have between food and our emotions or feelings.  That is why the failure rate of only going on a diet is so high!
Weight loss camps for adults are a way to attempt to address these relationships.  Unfortunately these camps become nothing more than mini-vacations focusing on short-term accountability and motivation.  When you consider the cost of such a short term effort (often $3000 – $20,000) and the fact that lasting change comes from the inside out and requires more than the average length of time of these camps, we must conclude that weight loss camps seem to be an ineffective solution for the growing obesity epidemic that the western world is facing. 

Obesity is the number one contributor to health related deaths in the world!

There is no doubt that a successful solution must be comprehensive. It must address the why – issues that include bad eating habits, limiting beliefs, and negative relationships with food and replace them with behaviors that lead to a healthy expression of emotion and greater sense self.   Love and acceptance must be the foundation that these changes are built upon.

A successful solution also must address the what by helping people make healthy food choices and give them the understanding of the importance of daily exercise. Personal responsibility for health must be the foundation that diet, nutrition and exercise is built upon.

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