Conflicts that accompany weight loss as indicated by the presence of anxieties and fears in individuals who have lost an uncontestably large amount of weight were investigated. Subjects (N=12) who had lost a minimum of 100 pounds in a medically supervised weight program were interviewed about the onset of obesity, concurrent personal conflicts,…

The psychosomatic theory of obesity assumes that binging, eating in response to emotional distress, is characteristic of obese individuals, yet experimental attempts to demonstrate binging have yielded weak support for this assumption. The incidence of binging was investigated by means of structured interviews on food habits with 41 male and 39…