Such actions send negative messages and help trigger a series of destructive feelings. Your loved one may smile at your warnings, but inside may be feeling like a failure, unable to lose weight and meet your expectations. Constant reminders of a problem from someone close has a strong negative impact, making the person feel that he or she is bad, ugly, hopeless and not lovable, simply because of weighing too much. And negative emotions often pull people to food as a way to temporarily forget those feelings.

So if nagging and trying to control doesn't help, what really does? The key is helping the person understand the issues that are causing the overeating and being truly supportive.

Ask the person you love to talk about his or her feelings, then identify any negative messages you may be giving or that he or she is feeling. Then help clarify and face down those feelings. For example, if your wife says she feels ugly because of her weight, focus on all the aspects of her beauty as a whole person. Call her attention to how beautiful she is when she is holding your child, for instance. Be aware of her sensitivity and make sure you're giving sincere, positive messages.

Eating, or severely restricting meals, is often a way to push down emotions that don't seem acceptable. You can help someone combat this by creating an environment where everyone's voice is heard and assertiveness is a way of problem solving. Don't teach that anger is bad. Instead, teach how to express anger in a respectful way. Encourage family members to express problems, feelings and needs. Make it clear that someone doesn't have to be perfect to be accepted.

Recognize that sometimes intense feelings, perhaps linked to loss or trauma, are tied to eating. That's one reason why diets fail. Diets take away the pounds temporarily, but do nothing to help break the emotions that eating helps hide. Reading, self-help groups and sometimes therapy are needed to break the pattern of those past feelings pulling your loved one to food. In a non-judgmental way, encourage the person you're trying to help to stop the focus on weight and to see if there are experiences or emotions linked to weight concerns.

Everyone "stress eats," the difference is in the degree. Chart your own eating for a few weeks, writing down the food eaten, time, feelings before eating, feelings after eating, and experiences that precipitated eating. Share that your stress eating information with your loved one. That can help reduce feelings of being alone and judged - two more strong feelings that trigger eating.

Set an example. After two weeks to a month of your not contributing any more weight advice, begin walking or jogging on your own. Ask your loved one to join you once you've started a routine, but don't pressure. A quiet walk can increase your feelings of closeness and will work to get the body and spirit moving.

Eventually, the person you love will begin to see you as an encouragement and support, not a critic. By getting involved this way, you'll become closer and also may provide the needed security to help your loved one stop and look at what drives his or her eating. You will have played a powerful role in changing patterns that lead to weight problems.

Brenda Crawford-Clark is a Tampa, Florida therapist and speaker who wrote Body Sense: Balancing Your Weight and Emotions and hosts the websites ForgetAboutDiets.Com and RecoveryPaths.Com which feature articles about weight, eating disorders, parenting, relationships, stress, depression and loss.