Dieting, Overweight and Obesity: Self-Regulation in a Food-Rich Environment

Why do so many people become overweight and obese and why do they find it so difficult to lose weight? In this second edition of his influential book on Dieting, Overweight and Obesity, Wolfgang Stroebe – who developed the goal conflict model of eating – explores the physiological, environmental and psychological influence on weight gain and examines how these processes are affected by genetic factors. Like the first edition, the book takes a social-cognitive approach to weight regulation and discusses how exposure to environmental cues can set-off overeating in chronic dieters. In addition to extensively revising and updating the chapters of the first edition, this second edition features three new chapters. The chapter on successful restrained eating reviews personality factors as well as recent experimental research on impulse control. The chapters on psychological treatment of obesity and on primary prevention describe and evaluate the various treatment and prevention approaches and the research conducted to assess their efficacy. This book is essential reading for students, researchers and clinicians interested in an up-to-date review of the field of eating research and a new theoretical approach to the study of overweight and obesity.

About the Author

Wolfgang Stroebe is Professor Emeritus of Utrecht University and now Visiting Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He is a former president of the European Association of Social Psychology, a Fellow of many psychological societies and the recipient of lifetime awards from the European Association of Social Psychology and the German Psychological Society. He has authored and co-authored numerous books and research articles on topics of social and health psychology.