'Love Your Body' to Lose Weight

New research involving SHES senior lecturer Dr David Markland shows that improving body image can enhance the effectiveness of weight loss programmes based on diet and exercise.

Researchers from the Technical University of Lisbon and Bangor University (Dr David Markland) enrolled overweight and obese women on a year-long weight loss programme.

Dr Teixeira (Technical University of Lisbon) who led the research,  stated "Body image problems are very common amongst overweight and obese people, often leading to comfort eating and more rigid eating patterns, and are obstacles to losing weight.  Our results showed a strong correlation between improvements in body image, especially in reducing anxiety about other peoples' opinions, and positive changes in eating behaviour. From this we believe that learning to relate to your body in healthier ways is an important aspect of maintaining weight loss and should be addressed in every weight control programme."

View the full story (as reported in ScienceDaily on 18 July 2011).

Publication date: 18 July 2011