Ukmedix has seen research that shows that one of the biggest motivators and influences for people to lose weight is the negative perception of their friends. In the United States where about a third of people are obese and about 2/3rds are overweight often this negative perception does not exist. People get comfortable looking overweight and obese as everyone around them is the same. Overweight and obese people feel very self concious when they are the only fat person around but when they are surrounded by other fat people they feel at ease and relax.

The growing obesity problem all over the world is not helped by the fact that obese people are getting more and more happy with being obese as there are so many more obese people around these days and they even kid themselves into thinking that being obese is not all that unhealthy.

A new research project undertaken by Thompson Medstat has some startling results when it comes to obese American people's perceptions of themselves. The study was conducted with a random phone questionnaire on around 11,000 people of whom 1/3rd (about 3,100) were either obese or morbidly obese and another 4,200 were overweight. 

However of these people questioned as many as 75% of them said that they ate healthily and almost 40% of obese Americans said that they did vigorous physical exercise at least 3 times weekly. Other things found out were than 28% of obese Americans said that they snacked two times or more each day compared to 24% of slim Americans and that 19% obese Americans said that they examine the nutritional information on food compared to 24% slim weight Americans.

When it came to restaurants 29% of obese Americans said that they would eat out at a restaurant 3 times weekly compared to only 25% slim weight Americans and the 41% of the obese people said that they would consume all the food placed in front of them compared to only 31% of the slim weight Americans. What this survey tells us is that obese and overweight people are in denial about their health and this has serious health consequences.

Ukmedix is very aware that alot of the diet and weight loss battles are fought in the head of the person and a good positive and realistic attitude is needed to undertake weight loss seriously.