Groovybabe

I have just read a fascinating article in Lighter Life magazine about freedom. It basically suggests that we all need freedom to thrive but it is what we do with that freedom that determines the success of us as individuals.

With freedom comes choices and limitations, which translates as respnsibility and it is how we cope with responsibility as people that matters.

Observers suggest obesity has come about through capatalist excess, and this is true. The sheer amount of food choice available to us in our developed human societies and the choices available for a lack of exercise has esculated in a rising epidemic of obesity. (I’m thinking Wall*e here, I am going to see it this weekend) This is because we are not dealing with the responsibility that comes with freedom of choice and have gotten greedy (not literally but in terms of choice we want it all).

We hear so often in our society about people not taking responsibility: men not wanting to settle down, parents not making their children go to school, teens involved in knife crime, high unemployment, junk food addicts… people want the freedom that comes from a free society but not the limitations that brings with it.

I think in order to be successful in weight loss then we need to accept we have the freedom to eat healthily or not, but know that we need to impose limitations on ourselves to help the freedom and weightloss to thrive. If we eat junk then that will hinder our success. Think of weightloss as society and food as the people within that society. In any society you have good and bad people; good people are free to come and go as they please and live their lives. Bad people need to be restrained and locked up and only released when they are under control again. Think of good people as healthy food. You are free to eat healthy food and you need to restrain and keep locked up in the supermarket junk food (bad people) until we know it is under control. Its a slightly complicated metaphor but I think it works.

According to Abraham Maslow, a renowned psychologist, there are 7 steps to freedom:

1. Physical - food, water, warmth and sleep.
2. Safety needs - protection, security and comfort.
3. Love & belonging - friendship, family and sexual intimacy.
4. Self esteem - competence, achievement, recognition and respect.
5. Cognitive - knowledge, meaning and understanding.
6. Aesthetic - symmetry, order and beauty.
7. Self-Actualisation - creativity, problem solving, personal growth and acceptance of facts.

I actually think that when we do not fulfil these needs within ourselves then we become lost in what it means to be who we are, we lose the ability to deal with choices that come with freedom in the right way and we become obese, and fail to keep ourselves happy. I think this is where the saying you need to sort the rest of your life out first and then weightloss will happen comes from. Of course I dont think it is as simple as that and you can lose weight and have that develop the self esteem to enable you to use your freedom wisely, but it certainly explains where I am coming from when I say obesity is a mental disorder.

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