Introduction
Many individuals around the world living with obesity are sometimes blamed in many instances which is mostly caused by perception from society. Most people think that it’s their fault that they are obese but most of these individuals’ sometimes show lack of issues involved with obesity while others just reflects lack of will to discuss issues concerning their health. A larger population of people living with obesity fail to discuss their weight issues with their doctors and in other instances their physicians fail to prescribe any way of managing their weights (Rebecca, Pearl & Matthew, 2014). The individuals blaming obese people for their conditions sometimes fail to understand that obesity is a broad condition with many contributing factors which ranges from environmental, behavioral influences, biological, individual social cultural and sometimes even economic issues according to social cultural change may influence obesity as a result of movement from traditional living may be to urban living.
Obesity blame game and the society
The prevalence of obesity among its victims is dependent on various lifestyle factors such as lack of exercising, bad eating habits and also poor treatment of weight loss outcomes. As a result, these people are susceptible to blame, neglect and stigma. The blames on the individuals living with obesity has led to internalization of obesity or weight gain bad attitudes towards individual living with obesity which is associated with low public health working above and beyond consequences attributed to body mass. Blames to individuals living with obesity and overweight individuals may initiate and lead to making of policies that can assist in stopping or preventing obesity. Vital information to note from researchers is that if weight gain or obesity is attributed to conditions under ones control, then this will be associated with increased blaming and stigmatization towards people living with obesity.
Analysis Obesity is a complex health factor. Sometimes the society view people living with obesity as ignorant and direct blames towards them without considering the factors that may have triggered the condition among the victims. The perception of the members of the society possess control attitudes attributed to individuals with obesity. Unfortunately, it is evident that the negative attitudes are the basis of all the blames directed to people living with obesity and which increase their stigmatization. Sometimes people with obesity shows a need for help from their doctors and health professionals for proper weight management. Evidences from researchers suggest that personal responsibility is not the sole determinants of public health. If obesity is attributed to personal responsibility then this poses a risk to public health. Associating weight gain to what most perceive as personal responsibility causes or leads to low government support to the public. There is need to emphasis public policies in order to prevent and reduce obesity. Last (Rebecca, Pearl &Matthew, 2014).
Factors that contribute to the cause of obesity
Personal responsibility in weight gain management for good eating habits and taking parts in physical exercise has been voted as the most determining factor of weight status. However, it has received a lot of criticism from the public health community because at runs from the reality of existence of other factors. Attributing weight gain or obesity to personal responsibility has been viewed has the source of belief that obesity can be controlled which may be seen as a source of encouragement and confidence among people living with obesity that they can lose weight.But when people living with obesity experiences difficulties or unable to manage and maintain weight loss then, these individuals failure to handle all these is equated to failure in personal will to lose weight.
As a result of increased long-term results of weight loss endeavors that mostly concentrates on the individual willingness in our case referred to as the personal responsibility it becomes clear that personal responsility may not be enough solution to the weight gain risk. Parental obesity has been identified as one of the factors leading to the childhood weight gain which has been attributed by increased sedentary lifestyles by the parents to their children’s which ranges from the time allowed by the parents for their children to watch television , play video or even use phones or computers, much reliance on snacks and readily available foods and allowing their children’s to engage in high intake of energy foods with high energy and increased purchase of food for children’s which are rich in high fat, increased sugar and salts.
Parental obesity in recent years has been recently attributed to some factors ranging from declining birthrates, reduced size families, income from both parents, and increased rate of divorce and the commercialization of the childhood foods.Parental obesity may have been contributed by the increased nagging by the parents to their children’s and increased nuanced behaviors which are persuasive to the parents ranging from pointing to items with increased sugars, fats or salts to sometimes grabbing, using persuasive language and other times emotional strategies by persuasive children’s to their passive parents especially mothers.In the long run, parents gain experiences of being nagged by their children’s for certain foodstuffs or anything that their children’s asks for, and they too gain skills in attending to the requests made by their children’s in order to meet their goals.
Parents sometimes in a practical sense influences the buying and provision of some foods incase of some types of snacks though the children’s would have the ultimate decisions their parents acts as decision makers and ends up buying some of junk products, prepare and pack their children’s lunches and sometimes they provide money to their children’s for the purchase of these products.Parents are also the key shapers of their children’s eating habits and mainly their preferences by what they teach them concerning nutrition as they set examples for their children by practicing good eating habits. In general, most children’s are directed by their parents on whether they can consume some foods and if they accept their children’s to take these foods, what would these foods be. (Simon Eraser University et al, 2007)
Obesity becomes a self-blame issue to many of individuals living with this conditions as they view weight gain as lifestyle issue and self-indulgence a perceptions which leads to assumption that you have failed in your will to fight this epidemic leading to low self-esteem and sometimes obese individuals if unable to make any of the changes in weight management methods they tends to build resentments on therapeutic prescriptions.People living with obesity tends to blame their selves for their status which can sometimes be easily seen in some messages such as “eat less, move more” which are words encouraged by the health system and the society at large.
However much these people are told, they ends up placing the final source of what on themselves and held themselves responsible for immense feelings ranging from shame and guilt.( Paul H. Thibodeau et al, 2015).Self-blame dominates individuals living with obesity which affects their esteem and ability to handle and tackle weight management.(Sara F. L. Kirk et l,2014)genetics plays a key role in influencing weight gain by the individuals and therefore it plays a major role in contributing to obesity.in several ways, genetic designs behavior provides a suitable information or evidence regarding etiological importance of environmental factors or events because it is only in genetic design the effects of family and the environmental genes can be discussed and also ability to detect environmental factors which are not specified.
The last contribution of genetic design behavior is the increasing determinants of unspecified environmental environmental influences which are shared among all the family members and those environmental influences that are not shared.( Jeff Niederdeppe et al,2014)If for example parental rearing was an important factor in determining the differences in weight but differed across the off springs then we might lack evidence for shared environmental influences. Shared environmental influences estimates can be found from a number of differing genetic behavior design.Genetic and family experiences which are shared all contribute to complete resemblance of the family where weight gain and obesity has been attributed to genetic influences.Experiences that are not specified but shared by the families lacks a major influence in individuals differences to weight and fat.( CarlosM.Grilo et al,1991)Family environmental has given out potential role of specific family behavior concerning obesity and weight gain concluding that parental weights may influence offspring status on weight and obesity.However, parental weight contributes little contributions to off springs weight gain and the obesity is taken as an environmental index, which agrees unspecified environmental experience which is shared in the family which also appears to have minor etiological results on obesity.
Biological factors
Biological attribution of obesity may lead to increased stigma and negative attitude by raising the perception that people living with obesity are totally different from healthy people which may lead to increased contribution to obesity.If obesity is attributed to the biological conditions it might interfere with ones self-esteem leading lack of will to participate in weight reduction and management policies.Biological attribution may turn to be a threat if it is going to interfere with the behavior of seeking the treatment which may contribute weight gain and obesity. (Rebecca L. Pearl*and Matthew S. Lebowitz, 2014).Health conditions of an individual may result to increased risk of weight increase, but being obese does not necessarily mean that you should receive medical care but if one is diagnosed with for example chronic diabetes then it may be easy to work with these people living with obesity.
Here physicians can prescribe a specific treatment appropriate for these individuals.Health of a person is also a contributing factor as sometimes the physicians when suffering from certain disorders you are directed on the foods to consume and other times this results to a eating disorder leading to obesity.(Sara F. L. Kirk et al, 2014)Mentally problems are associated with increased obesity as these mentally impaired people tend to consume anything available without much consideration of the diet and also lack information on proper weight management though obese are not mentally impaired people.Addiction to certain foods is also a major problem and obesity should be represented as an addictive disorder which cannot increase weight bias. Scientists have noted that obesity mostly results from factors ranging from genetic and deliberate lifestyles preferences and physical exercises and activities. Addictive disorders are considered to be mental disorders. ( anet D. Latner et al,2014)Self-handicap asserts more value to their weight attributing many factors to their weight and believing that this can positively improve their live. they believe that they live more sociable life than others, live more active life than others and many other advantages than low self-handicappers..( anet D. Latner et al,2014)
Stopping obesity play games
In obesity blame game, causal attributions are the major components of considerations for responsibility attributions and general and blameworthiness. Active voice in obesity blame game, gives a sense of control of the status and causation that might be lacking in the voice that is active. Repeated measures in the obesity blame perceive control. Causation are influenced by the converges of verb voice which is just an example of how subtleties can produce adequate effects through influence of casual attributions. (Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, 2008).
Conclusion
In conclusion, attribution of blame on some issues which may be a source of bad eating or healthy conditions, individual behavior can highly and negatively affect and impact individuals living with obesity. There is need for society to engage in a non-judgmental opinion concerning obese people and also important to note the relationship between weight gain and obesity and its many causes and not simply single causations.
References
Pearl, RL and Lebowtz, MS (2014) Beyond personal responsibility: Effects of causal attributions for overweight and obesity on weight-related beliefs, stigma, and policy support. Psychology & Health, 2014Kirk, SFL, Price SL, Penney, TL, Rehman, L, Lyons, RF, Vallis, HP, Vallis, TM, Curran, J, Aston M (2014) Blame, Shame, and Lack of Support: A Multilevel Study on Obesity ManagementSilvia Knobloch-WesterwickThe Ohio State UniversityLaramie D. TaylorUniversity of California, Davis The Blame GameElements of Causal Attributionand Its Impact on SidingWithAgents in the NewsJanet D. Latner,Rebecca M. Puhl Jessica M. Murakami,Kerry S. O’Brien Food addiction as a causal model of obesity. Effects on stigma, blame,and perceived psychopathologyeff Niederdeppe, Michael A. Shapiro, and Hye Kyung Kim Narrative Persuasion, Causality, Complex Integration, and Supportfor Obesity Policy Health Communication, 29: 431“444, 2014Paul H. Thibodeau, Victoria L. Perko, Stephen J. Flusberg The relationship between narrative classification of obesity andsupport for public policy interventions Department of Psychology, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH, USACarlos M.Grilo Michael EPogue-Geile,The Nature of Environmenta lInfluences onWeight and Obesity: A Behavior Genetic Analysis. Department of Psychology and Department of Psychiatry University of Pittsburgh.