Obesity

Abstract

The cognitive approach to obesity has experienced a profound evolution over the past quarter century. Working from a 1960s operant framework, practitioners, utilizing state-of-the-art techniques, focused primarily upon modifying eating-related behaviors, propitiously arranging the consummatory behavioral environment, and judiciously orchestrating contingencies for weight and behavioral change. Self-monitoring of eating behaviors and their situational context was in vogue during these early years. With the cognitive revolution in clinical psychology came significant additions to the core treatment regimen for obesity. Clients learned how to assess and correct the maladaptive thinking that directly contributes to the etiology and maintenance of obesity. Cognitive restructuring, guided imagery, self-instructional training, goal setting, self-reinforcement, and problem solving are but a few of the interrelated, cognitively based procedures that have been incorporated into preexisting behavioral programs.