Will losing weight make you happy?

A survey that was recently carried out in the United States has left us speechless. 800 women were surveyed to try to understand if they really thought losing weight would make them happy. We seem to live in a world where there are many misunderstandings about the relationship between being healthy, happiness, and what it takes to achieve it.** Let’s analyze what women in the USA say. Initially, 77% of the women surveyed agreed that “if they lost (x amount) of kilos, they would feel different about themselves.” This doesn’t come with much surprise. But you have to understand something. The ideal of women in our society is a stereotype that has little to do with being healthy. And more with other things that are worth questioning. Being always exposed to these stereotypes through all media, entertainment and etc., it is very normal for many people to associate “being skinnier with being happy.” 51% believed they had to make a considerable sacrifice in order to lose weight. The information was shared here:

• 43% said they would sacrifice their favorite food
• 36% would not want to sacrifice anything
• 17% going out with friends
• 4% outings with their partners When asked if their happiness was related to their physical appearance, only 43% said yes. In comparison, when asked if they could in turn be tied to feeling healthy, a good 80% said yes. This simple difference gives us a lot of hope for the future. Worrying more about physical appearance than health can have many psychological and physical consequences due to the extremes to which they can fall. Worrying about our health, learning to eat, exercise, etc., is really worrying about our real well-being. There is no reason to neglect our physique. But neither does it make it the center of what we are looking for. There are much more important things at stake than superficialities like that (for example, your health!)