Overweight and obesity have significant health and economic consequences for people living in the UK. The psychological factors involved in the development of overweight and obesity are very important and can make a significant contribution to the development of interventions that inform public health policy and services. The current thesis employed three studies to examine the psychological factors that may predict overweight and obesity and contribute to the development of interventions that help to promote long-term weight loss maintenance, which have implications for improving health outcomes and reducing the economic burden. Study One (N=60) employed a 5-day diary to examine overweight and obese individuals' perceived reasons for eating (particularly in relation to unhealthy snacking). Study Two (N=30) was a follow-up to Study One and examined the factors that may predict long-term weight change. Finally, Study Three (N=60) employed an exploratory randomised controlled trial to examine the efficacy of a combined mindfulness plus implementation intentions intervention for promoting physical activity. The results of Study One provided evidence for the existence of reasons for eating unhealthy snacks other than hunger and highlighted the importance of addressing these factors within weight management interventions. Study Two did not conclusively demonstrate that psychological reasons for eating were long-term predictors of weight change, suggesting future research is needed to obtain further information on this complicated issue. This will help to determine whether reasons for eating can indeed predict weight change. The combined intervention in Study Three failed to promote physical activity, but highlighted a number of interesting factors such as task difficulty, unsupportive environments and insufficient motivation that need to be addressed in future research. Ensuring the population maintain a healthy weight and improving long-term health outcomes is very important, and therefore needs to be addressed at multiple levels in order to inform effective public health policy and services.

Thesis (M.S.)--Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, 2005. / Typescript (photocopy).