Nearly one fourth of adult women in the United States are currently overweight, despite numerous approaches to weight control. Nurses are confused about appropriate interventions for overweight women who weight cycle-that is, experience repeated periods of weight loss followed by weight regain. Women continue to suffer the negative physical, psychological, and financial consequences of weight cycling, which is related to increased adiposity, an additional important health risk. Moderately successful, long-term weight control treatments are programs that have a combined intervention prescribing both controlled amounts of health food intake and aerobic exercise. Although such a physical program can promote weight loss, the psychological components often are not considered and are the reasons why so many diet/exercise programs fail. The Holistic Self-Care Model combines the successful physical, cognitive, and psychological essentials of healthy approaches for weight reduction as a means of stopping weight cycling and promoting weight control.
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