Overweight people do not represent a homogenous group. One group grows heavy in accordance with its constitutional makeup, another becomes overweight from compulsive eating. Social and medical mores condemn overweight so that even in adolescence, where a certain weight excess is normal, it is condemned. Maladjustment and a secondarily abnormal obesity follow.

The two groups show a marked difference in the way they approach the question of reducing. The fairly well-adjusted overweight person approaches the problem more rationally with more realistic goals even though his problem is still a difficult one. For the obese person with psychological problems, the