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Show Fighting Fatness Makes Good Sense practitioner, the internist, the pediatrician usually can provide suitable guidance and support as part o the weight-reduction program, pro-gram, the AMA book says. The life There's no doubt about it. Many of us are too fat. Almost everyone who is too Eat would like to slim down to average size for his height and build. Many women would like to be on the skinny side. The American Medical Association's Asso-ciation's home health book, Today's To-day's Health Guide, points out that most physicians consider obesity obes-ity an important factor in personal per-sonal health for three reasons: It is common. It is associated with increased in-creased sickness and death rates, notably in respect to heart, circulatory, circu-latory, kidney, and metabolic disorders dis-orders as well as surgical and obstetrical ob-stetrical complications. It can be successfully treated to help control associated medical conditions. Medical experience strongly suggests greater risks for overweight over-weight persons in respect to most of the major disorders besetting our population. The evidence for generally adverse effects from obesity obes-ity seems too massive and too consistent con-sistent to be ignored. So we need to lose weight. It should be simple: just cut down on the calories. Unfortunately, it often isn't simple. Taking fewer calories than are needed seems to be within the theoretical capability capabil-ity of most of us. Yet results suggest sug-gest that this is difficult and often not achieved. Long-term observations observa-tions indicate poor success for most dieters. One factor involved in overweight over-weight is psychological. Emotional factors are operative in all of ns. Psychological factors may help cause overweight, or help to maintain main-tain it. Seldom is psychiatric confutation con-futation required. The general MS f ' - - physician's aim is to prod and reinforce re-inforce our will to lose weight, to help us be so determined to trim off excess pounds that wc will stick to the reducing regime. The physician may prescribe drugs at first, as a crutch to help us get started. These can reduce appetite, promote a feeling o well-being, add bulk in the stomach, stom-ach, eliminate excess fluids. They can, at best, afford only temporary help. They postpone the day when facts must be faced, when we finally fin-ally make up our minds that we must change our eating habits to keep our weight under control., 5-61 |