Romantic partners can be a strong influence on individuals’ weight loss efforts and progress. New research aims to find out if working together is the key to weight loss.
In a study published online in the journal ‘Health Communication’, interpersonal communication expert, Dr René Dailey, Department of Communication Studies, University of Texas at Austin, set out to investigate how people interpret their romantic partner’s approaches to help weight loss. The research intended to determine whether the weight loss was a team effort, how much opposing approaches to weight loss did the partners have, and how easy or difficult it was for a person to balance their weight loss goals within their relationship goals.
Dr Dailey identified three most common weight loss strategies couples used:
Encouragement – like giving praise and reassurance
Influence – pushing their partner to do better and make healthier choices, and
Coercion – making the other feel guilty by withdrawing affection.
Along with this Dr Dailey also identified four different ‘relational environments’ in which couples lose weight. They were:
Synchronised: This was high team effort with low relationship strains. Both the partners share a positive attitude towards weight loss and act as a team to pursue their weight loss goals.
Contentious cooperative: This was moderate in all three approaches, like encouragement, influence and coercion. Here approaching weight loss sometimes caused conflict.
Autonomous: This was low in all relationship characteristics, and people received only sporadic encouragement from their partner, without undue interference.
Lone battlers: This was a low team effort where the couples experienced high relationship strains. Lone battlers, either the man or woman, were less likely to discuss weight loss as a couple.
The study discovered that ‘synchronised’ partners, who had weight loss as a shared goal, were far more receptive to all three strategies, like encouragement, influence and coercion. The couple also interpreted positively negative emotions that came with coercion, like guilt, as a concern for their partner’s health. This would mean positive effects for both weight loss and the couple’s relationship. However, said Dr Dailey, “Relational partners co-create an environment in which people lose weight. A partner’s behaviour, that supports weight loss, can be viewed differently depending on the environment. For example, a person who wants to focus on diet but their partner focuses on exercise might see the partner’s suggestion of going for a walk as intrusive and unhelpful. By contrast, a person who feels they and their partner are on the same page about how to lose weight could welcome the suggestion.” This suggests that couples that are trying to lose weight could be putting their relationship under strain unless partners are aligned in their approaches. It is, therefore, imperative that they receive more tailored recommendations so that they can support each other’s weight loss goals along with maintaining of their relationship.