Highly Successful Weight Control by Formerly Obese Adolescents: A Qualitative Test of the Healthy Obsession Model

Abstract

The Healthy Obsession Model (HOM) suggests that successful weight controllers must develop a preoccupation with the planning and execution of target behaviors to reach and maintain healthy weights (e.g., controlled eating, consistent selfmonitoring). This model further posits that committed weight controllers will feel substantial anxiety or frustration when lapses occur, which, in turn, will motivate them to reinstate target behaviors. The present study tested the HOM by examining the perceptions and attitudes of four very successful and four relatively unsuccessful adolescent weight controllers 1 year after completing immersion treatment. We expected that successful weight controllers, more so than unsuccessful weight controllers, would report more elaborate definitions of their healthy obsessions and describe more negative reactions to potential and actual lapses. In-depth interviews were conducted using a version of the Scanlan Collaborative Interview Method. Reliable coding of the interviews produced results that supported the hypothesis that highly successful weight controllers seem to nurture strong healthy obsessions, including clear definitions of healthy obsessions, heightened commitment based on the emotional impact of excess weight, and negative reactions to lapses. In addition, these adolescent weight controllers seemed motivated by some of the same factors that elite athletes identified in the Sport Commitment Model (e.g., Emotional and Experiential Consequences; Social Support of Parents, Friends, and Peers; Institutional Influences; and Valuable Opportunities).