Research by Kings College London shows that children with low self-esteem are overweight as adults, and this link is stronger with women.

Professor David Collier, one of the researchers, said that this is not about people with deep psychological problems, as all the anxiety and low self-esteem were within the normal range. So helping children to feel better about themselves and less anxious will help reduce the risk of being overweight as adults. For women, self-esteem is strongly linked to how we feel about our attractiveness. We can feel and be attractive even with ordinary bodies, we don't need to be perfect. But if you feel bad about yourself, your confidence low, then you can see that dieting isn`t going to deal with any excess weight. Until you feel good about yourself, any unhelpful eating behaviours, like comfort eating, will continue to defeatThis is an important message for young people, especially girls. As I have blogged before:

• don't talk about dieting in front of the children
• don't express anxiety about your body

And on the practical front, don't have fun foods like chocolate, biscuits, cakes, crisps, fizzy pop in the house all the time and available as everyday consumables. Treat treats as treats.

Yesterday the Scottish Government published summary statistics showing changes in overweight and obesity in Scotland between 1995 and 2009. It shows an upward trend of obesity and overweight. This is a serious health problem for Scotland.

In 2009 almost two-thirds of men aged 16-64 (66.3%) and more than half of women (58.4%) were overweight (including obese). I bet most people think that overweight is a woman's problem! Certainly women worry about it more than men. In 1995 the figures were 55.6% for men. So 20% more men are obese or overweight in just 14 years. In 1995 47.2% women were classified as overweight or obese, so by 2009 the number had gone up by 21%.

The increase was greater amongst those who were obese (including morbidly obese) where the percentage for men increased from 15.9% to 26.8%  (over a quarter of the population and up 68%)between 1995 and 2009 and from 17.3% to 26.4% for women. So more than a quarter of Scotland's population is obese. Obesity has risen faster than general overweight.

In 2009, almost a third of children (29.7%) were outwith the healthy weight range (31.0% of boys and 28.3% of girls). For boys, prevalence increased between 1998 and 2008, followed by a sharp decline in 2009. For girls the corresponding figures were very similar each year and did not vary significantly. The Scottish Government has established a National Indicator to reduce the rate of increase in the proportion of children with their BMI outwith a healthy range by 2018.

Exercise where the goal is weight loss has contrary results. I have blogged about this before (8 March 2011). Exercising to reduce weight is linked to disordered eating which can be caused by or trigger low self-esteem and can result in increased weight.

Exercise for health and wellbeing on the other hand is a most excellent idea, promoting suppleness, strength and stamina.

But what about when you are pregnant? I found the book Essential Exercises for the Childbearing Year very helpful and it seems the author was many decades ahead of her time. New research suggests that stretching exercises are protective against pre-eclampsia.

Pre-eclampsia is more common when you are overweight. Exercise has been shown to reduce the risk of pre-eclampsia even when weight remains the same.  Research in 2009 reported that simple stretching exercises consisting of slow muscle movements performed 5 times a week starting at 18 weeks, reduced the risk of pre-eclampsia significantly more than walking for 40 minutes 5 times a week. That report and another by the same researcher showed that more women will stick to doing stretching exercises than walking. Perhaps it fits in more easily to everyday life.

Research just published in the American Journal of Perinatology by Sowndramalingam Sankaralingam and colleagues suggests that this difference may be due to stretching exercises reducing oxidative stress in blood vessels. Oxidation damages cells in the body, and it seems that stretching reduces oxidation, whereas walking doesn't. (Most of us know now that dark coloured vegetables and fruit  contain anti-oxidants which help to protect us from oxidative cell damage.)

The researchers tested biopsy samples obtained during cesarean sections from women who had been following either the stretching or the walking regime. The stretchers had more of the antioxidant Superoxide Dismutase and higher Plasma Transferrin levels (which shows that antioxidants are in the blood). Plasma Transferrin levels continued to increase throughout pregnancy among the stretchers but not among the walkers.

The researchers conclude that the beneficial effect of regular stretching exercises during pregnancy beat the benefits of walking and that this may be due to the higher antioxidant protective effect of this low-intensity exercise. So these exercises go beyond strength, suppleness and stamina, and increase our general good health. Perhaps all of us should give them a try, not just pregnant women.

I have blogged about this before. There is now a lot of evidence that shows
that dieters are prone to future weight gain. A study by researchers at the University of Helsinki, published in the latest issue of the International Journal of Obesity, supports this and also provides evidence that the waist busting effects of dieting are not related to any genetic factors.

There is lots of pressure to be thin. Models are still abnormally skinny (less than 5% of women could achieve such bodies) and not only that, they are airbrushed to look even more unnaturally svelte. So we see before us every day lots of little hints that our bodies are not up to standard.

So there is pressure to diet. But all the research says that dieting makes you fat. So losing weight just to be more socially acceptable might make matters worse. The less you feel able to achieve the unachievable, the more likely you are to hit the Bounty bar (28g, 135 calories and gone in a trice).
If you are attempting to lose weight by dieting then be warned that you may in fact be increasing your long term risk of becoming (more) overweight or even obese.

But there is another way. For most of us, we have developed bad habits, such as nibbling on crisps in front of the telly, buying a bucket of popcorn at the cinema, eating peanuts with our drinks, drinking lots of alcohol, getting hungry and work and shovelling in a mars bar on the way home, eating till we are fit to burst..... need I go on? Many of us have done or are doing all or some of these. Me too, I am just as affected by advertising as the rest of us. So, dealing with these bad habits will at least allow us to feel in control of our eating, and as a result, this will protect us from the risks of dieting.

Come and see me and give it a try.

Americans consume on average 135 pounds of sugar a year. That is nearly 3 pounds a week! 20 years ago it was half a pound a week. Where is it all coming from? Mostly from processed foods which have grown in use in the same time. Sugar and syrup are hidden in a whole host of food - microwave meals, peanut butter, cornflakes. Even when you can't taste it.

Scots are not far behind. Food Standards Agency Scotland did a survey of the NMES consumption (non-milk extrinsic sugars which is the technical term for sugars added to food and drink). The main sources of sugar in the diets of children living in Scotland are soft drinks, confectionery, biscuits and cakes and on average for Scottish children these foods constitute over 17% of their calorie intake and the trend is upwards. Older children take more of their calories in these foods. For 3 to 7 year olds it is 16% and 12 to 17 year olds it is 19%.

This means that on average we are training our children from a young age to eat a lot of sugary foods so as they get older the habit is well established. By the time they are in their early twenties we could expect them to be worrying about their weight.

French people are really keen on food (so am I!) and they spend 135 minutes a day eating. In Britain, it's about 85 minutes, and in the USA about 75 minutes. This is from an OECD report. And yet the French are generally of healthy proportions. Fewer of them are fat. What is going on here?

Well, the French still eat at the table. They cook rather than assemble their food. They eat in a slow and calm way, taking their time and as a result, they are aware of when they are feeling full. (It takes about 20 minutes for your brain to register that your stomach is happy with its meal.) Then they stop eating.

The British and Americans are spending less time eating, but managing to munch many more calories than the French in this shorter time. Britain and the USA are in the top 3 overweight nations (Scotland is No 2). Americans eat in front of the telly, and the trigger to stop eating is when the show is over.

To help you manage your own eating, work out what it is that triggers you to stop eating. Hypnosis can help you find out what starts you eating and what causes you to stop. And then to get some more helpful eating behaviours.