Dealing with Negative People

Do you know someone who seems to never have a positive thing to say about anything or anyone?  Someone who constantly complains about situations and criticizes other people?  If you’re a positive person with a sunny outlook, spending time with negative people with dark clouds looming over their heads is sure to impact your mood and increase the chances of you becoming their Debbie Downer partner in crime.  If you’re ready to take control of the negativity in your life read on. 

What can we do to reduce the impact that these people can have on us?  The first thing to do is to try and understand why these individuals are the way they are.  What leads people down the negative path?  Many typically possess characteristics such as:

• Attention seeking tendencies
• Learned behaviors from others, such as their parents

• Low self-esteem
• Passive-aggressive tendencies
• Mood disorders such as depression

Constant exposure to other’s negativity can, in time, cause your own levels of optimism to crash and burn. There are many ways you can deal with persistent negativity depending on the type of relationship you have with the person concerned. Where the negative person is someone with whom you do not have many personal dealings, avoidance may be the best policy.

Often, however, it may be a co-worker or family member that is constantly dragging you down. This makes the situation much more difficult to deal with as it is both chronic and more personal. Here are some further suggestions:

• “Dilute” their impact by spending time with them only when other people are around.  Try to limit alone time.

• Don’t buy into the negativity.  Be assertive and state “Enough of the doom and gloom” and change the subject.

• Replace their negative statements with a positive one. Ultimately they will get
sick of not being heard.

• Praise their good attributes; they may then feel less of a need to be negative and you may also help to improve their self-esteem.

If you sense that someone in your close circle is suffering from depression or low-self esteem you may want to suggest they get treatment from a therapist to help them deal with their issues.  Attention seeking, passive-aggressive communication and other learned behaviors are more difficult to address but if you can get them into therapy the therapist should be able to address these issues when the time is right. 

Take a few moments to evaluate the relationships in your life.  Consider your coworkers, family and friends and see if you can identify the negative and positive people in your life.  Then make a concerted effort to spend more time with the positive people and using the tips above to keep the negative folks at bay.  In time you may just find your own level of happiness and optimism at an all-time high. 

            

American Medical Association Officially Labels Obesity a “Disease”

Obesity is a significant contributing factor for many diseases including heart disease and diabetes so it should come as no surprise that obesity has been looked upon as a risk factor by the medical community.  Approximately 30% of our nation is considered obese with another 40% considered overweight and statistically moving towards obesity.  With the cost of obesity-related disease surpassing tobacco-related diseases for the first time in years and with the bulk of our nation’s medical expenses related to preventable conditions, it wasn’t shocking to learn that the AMA finally labeled obesity as an official disease.  Was this a good move?  What does this mean for treatment and how might this impact our already struggling health care system?

            First of all, this move has upset many individuals including some that argue that one shouldn’t have to maintain a supermodel figure in order to fit in with mainstream society or in other words; big can be beautiful.  Others have commented that it is an individual choice to eat and live as they please so why should they be labeled as having a disease?  Let’s be honest, the media is chalked full of models, sexually suggestive ads and stereotypes leading to a distortion of healthy body-image and an unclear message of what it means to be healthy.  And while it is our choice to eat as we please the food system has become one of convenience and poor in nutrients so choosing to eat three square meals from the drive through doesn’t carry a strong argument. 

            I agree that media has done us a disservice when it comes to body image. It’s ironic that the same media advertises nearly impossible and statuesque physiques in one commercial yet we’re now told to eat at the newest fast food burger chain or feed our kid’s the latest sugary beverage in the next.  Regardless of obesity’s new designation hopefully we can eventually address our perception of ideal weight, overweight and obesity as we move closer to a healthier generation. 

As a health and fitness expert I think we’re talking about two extremes to the same issue.  Meaning it is extreme and potentially unhealthy to strive for a supermodel body and simply unhealthy to be overweight or obese. If ones body-fat percentage (the ratio of organs, bones, lean muscle mass & fat mass) or BMI (body-mass index or ratio of height and weight) falls into the overweight or obesity category than we are at risk for developing heart disease, diabetes and a host of other problems.  Excessive alcohol consumption can lead to liver disease and too much sun exposure can lead to skin cancer.  Simply put a lifestyle of excess can be dangerous for all of us. 

It is understood that obesity is a link to life-threatening diseases and now that obesity is considered a disease our medical community will be forced to recognized it and treat it; something not necessarily required in the past (doctors don’t want to call us fat and haven’t had the time to prescribe a fitness regimen).  We can now expect and only hope that our doctor will provide counseling for obesity and weight-management services, treatment plans and medication (yet hope they don’t promote medication over lifestyle changes). 

In the short run I’m certain insurance claims will go up, prescriptions will be doled out as a quick fix and insurance premiums are likely to continue to increase.  However after a significant amount of time, education, treatment and guidance I’m hopeful that some time over the next decade we’ll start to see a promising new trend towards national health and vitality.  Who knows, someday the headlines in 10-20 years will read, “U.S. Obesity Rates Fall to Record New Lows.”