Almost any medical or dietary professional will tell you that it is better to prevent an eating problem altogether or to minimize its scale, than to try and treat it once it has developed.
It is also true that sometimes when talking to people who are clearly obese, even if not to particularly serious levels, they do not realise how their current eating habits are likely to yield more and more trouble for their weight and overall health in the future.
So, here are a few tips about aspects of your eating behaviours that you should regard as warning signs and indicators that you may need to consider taking action.

• You find that mid-morning, mid-afternoon and perhaps early evening pre-dinner eating is becoming the norm.
  

Although people are different, if you are eating a well-balanced diet you should, on a whole, be perfectly satisfied if you have eaten a healthy breakfast, lunch and eventually evening meal.
There may be a few exceptions in circumstances where you are engaging in very heavy amounts of physical exercise or perhaps are pregnant.
Generally though, eating throughout the day is a warning sign that your appetite is getting out of control.

• A modest snack no longer satisfies you.
  

The French (who have comparatively few problems with obesity) have the concept of a "goutez", around 4-5pm or "aperitifs" usually around 6.
30pm.
These snacks exist to bridge the hunger gap between the completion of lunch around 1.
30 and the typically later eating hour (say 8.
30pm) that French people start their dinner.
Note though that these typically involve very small portions of perhaps a few peanuts, olives or small savouries etc.
If you find that you need to stop off for something like a sandwich, burger or large slice of pie to get you from lunch to your evening meal then it is another warning sign because they're all meals in their own right and not tiny snacks.
Don't assume though that a constant nibbling of snacks all through the day is OK either.
A lot of small portions of snacks chomped incessantly at the desk or elsewhere throughout the day between meals is the same as stopping for a burger.

• You are nipping down for snacks after you have gone to bed.
  

Assuming you have eaten a reasonable evening meal, you should never find yourself in the position of going to bed hungry and needing to get up later for a snack.

• You find yourself constantly disappointed at the portion sizes people are serving you.
  

Of course, it is perfectly possible to be given a rather meagre portion in a restaurant or when you visit someone, in which case you can be legitimately disappointed! Yet if you find that this is happening to you constantly when you are eating out or visiting others, it may be a sign that you are eating portions that are too large as part of your own normal daily routine.

• Every time you go out somewhere, you are taking snacks with you or thinking about where you might be able to find food once you are out.
  

This is starting to suggest a potentially unhealthy preoccupation with food.

• You constantly refuse options involving salads, fruit and vegetables, instead preferring those involving a high carbohydrate or sugar content.
  

One of the most worrying symptoms for someone who is gaining even a little surplus weight is when every meal they consume has to be bulk "comfort food" or it is otherwise simply seen as being unsatisfying.

• You are looking at examples of healthy weight loss recipes and thinking that they are impossible to even contemplate.
  

Typically, most enlightened modern weight loss programs will consist of recipes and menus that are perfectly well balanced and which provide more than adequate quantities of food.
If you find it inconceivable that you could possibly eat such food or survive on it, then it may again suggest you are simply eating too much of the wrong type of food currently.
Any of the above symptoms might give legitimate cause to question your current eating habits and whether or not they are in danger of spiralling out of control.
If you talk to an experienced provider of weight loss programs, they may be able to give you further specific information relating to your individual circumstances.