By Randall C. Flanery, Ph.D.
One third of all Americans are overweight, despite all of the diet books, exercise regimens, and the latest celebrity advice on how to rapidly lose pounds and look like a movie star (really, Heidi, 14 hours of exercise a day?). For some people, the extra weight they carry is more than they can address on their own with a sensible diet and an increase in exercise. Individuals struggling with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, depression, limited mobility, or a decrease in quality of life associated with being overweight now have a resource in St. Louis to help them get off the dieting merry-go- round.
Americans who want to be healthier are faced with a cruel and unwinnable dilemma:
- Humans have a biology designed to readily turn food into stored energy (fat).
- An incredibly efficient economy for providing irresistible food at any time, in any place, and very inexpensively.
- A culturally defined image of beauty emphasizing being slender and muscular, but which fewer than 2% of the population can achieve.
The result is a range of eating and weight control pathology for which there does not seem to be a ready solution. Achieve fashion magazine thinness and destroy your health; freely enjoy all that delectable food and shorten your life from obesity-related medical conditions like diabetes and heart disease; or let your body tell you what size it wants to be and risk spoken and unspoken criticism from others.
At Webster Wellness Professionals, we use evidence-based, non-invasive practices to help people escape from this no-win rat race by helping them re-establish a healthy lifestyle they can live with for the rest of their lives. Since everyone is different and the reasons for resorting to unhealthy weight control vary, we understand the means for achieving lasting health will be different as well.
Webster Wellness Professionals offers many options:
- A comprehensive and intensive program consisting of a weekly 2 1/2 hour skills group and individual coaching from Cherie Massman, a well-trained behavioral expert.
- A program teaching skills derived from dialectical behavior therapy (DBT); e.g. mindful eating, distress tolerance, and effective emotion regulation to address overeating as a self-defeating effort to regulate negative emotions.
- A tailored meal plan created in consultation with a registered dietitian familiar with the dangers of an exaggerated emphasis on dietary extremes.
- A skilled psychotherapist to help you achieve a better balance in your life, reflecting your innermost values or to help re-establish those life patterns that you already know work for you.
If the professionals at WWP can be of help, please call us at 314.737.4010 for a free consultation.
Dr. Flanery earned his doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1983. He is the Director of Webster Wellness Professionals, an outpatient disordered eating and weight management center. He is an adjunct associate professor of Family Medicine at Saint Louis University School of Medicine. Dr. Flanery has more than 25 years of clinical experience treating eating disorders and obesity. He also has a broad background in the treatment of a variety of childhood and adolescent conditions. He uses evidenced-based methods to help individuals achieve lifetime healthy weight management and weight control. Besides authoring publications on the treatment of eating disorders and childhood health problems, he has served as Director of Eating Disorders Programs and Child/Adolescent services. He is a member of the American Psychological Association, Academy of Eating Disorders (AED), and the Society of Child Clinical Psychology. He is an associate editor and current reviewer of PsyCritiques, an online journal of reviews. Dr. Flanery is a frequent speaker to professional and public groups.