Overeating apparently reduces feelings of tension associated with negative emotional states. It has been observed that obese children seek a way of relieving excessive emotional tension or alleviating a state of frustration precisely through excessive eating.

According to Taton, mechanisms such as the child's desire for parental or environmental attention, the influence of anxiety or non-specific stress, and the treatment of food as a symbol of a sense of security and care that may be lacking in a given environment can lead to disordered eating behaviour.

It follows from the above that it is not indifferent to the child's psychological development and social adaptation in which emotional atmosphere he or she grows up and which ways of relieving emotional tension are taught by the immediate environment. The psychological and social consequences of obesity are becoming very important from a psychopedagogical point of view.

Awareness of the relationship between family functions and health and illness has been recent.

The World Health Organisation emphasises the great importance of non-professional health care. In the first group we can include family, relatives, neighbours, friends and all self-help groups.

The family, as the basis of the layperson's system, has for centuries been the primary institution performing a variety of functions in health and illness, currently referred to as health promotion or health strengthening and prevention and rehabilitation.

The relationship between the functions of the family and the level of health and fitness of its members is obvious - often direct. Each function is very important for the course, quality and outcome of children's health education.

A number of functions are interdependent, some directly - one resulting from the other. Awareness of the importance of family functions in the field of upbringing is a necessary condition for raising the level of health education and health culture of children, adults and family members.

Bibliography:

1. Danek A., Dysfunctionality of the family. Wybrane konsekwencje psychopedagogiczne na przykładzie młodzieży z otyłości prostą, J. Włodek-Chronowska (ed.) [in:] Psychopedagogiczne problemy edukacji dzieci i młodzieży Zeszyty naukowe Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, Kraków 1996, p. 90-93

2. Ziemska M., Rodzina a osobowość, Warsaw 1979, pp. 37-39