Childhood obesity: adverse psychological effects
Being overweight can lead to depression, anxiety, and general low self-esteem in children due to rejection by others.
Low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, distorted self-perception, complex … these problems and many others are those that an obese child can suffer both in the short and long term due to being significantly overweight.
Index
THE FIRST MONTHS OF LIFE
From the earliest childhood your child interacts with you. When you feed it, you are also covering demands on your baby that are not food: you give him tenderness, pampering, calm him of fears, play with your baby … this behavior leaves a residue inside him that will influence the future and mark his behavior before food.
THE CHILD IS STILL VULNERABLE BECAUSE HE DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO DEFEND HIMSELF AGAINST EXTERNAL ATTACKS
IN CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE
Social rejection among their peers, little tolerance for rejecting attitudes from their friends and colleagues, insults and teasing … these will be situations that obese children and adolescents will go through in many situations. This social pressure can become destructive in the not yet fully formed personality of the person. If we add to this the typical changes of his age, the development and growth of his body, the mixture can be explosive. Adolescence and late childhood alone are difficult enough to increase this transition to adult life with being overweight.
On the contrary, the child, not yet knowing how to defend himself from external attacks or having a real awareness of his problem, turns to food as a refuge from his frustration and anger, and eats to “protect himself” from his own insecurity and anxiety causing this problem.
This rejection to which the child is subjected is like an incessant trickle that falls on his mind, and has the risk of causing psychological and emotional problems in his behavior and in his relationship with others, in the short and long term, forming his personality in relation to being an obese child.
An obese child will find it difficult to establish bonds with his classmates, and as time passes he will begin to feel less valid and effective than his class friends, his self-esteem will lower covering various aspects of his life, and he will limit himself in his aspirations and goals. Thus, this contempt by others for their physical appearance can lead to isolation in the child with respect to their environment, with traces of antisocial attitudes.
Dr. Tabriella Perivolaris, Sara's mother and fan of fashion, beauty, motherhood, among others, about the female universe. Since 2018 she has been working as a copywriter, always bringing to her articles a little of her experience and experience as a mother and woman.