Times article on emotional eating

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Eat your heart out: It's not what, it's why

Using everything from meditation to religion, women are facing up to the reasons behind their unhappy relationship with food

Alexithymia is a nerdy word for an inability to express feelings in words; it’s a sciencey way of describing a person who lacks emotional insight.

For a huge number of women, alexithymia manifests itself in emotional eating — behaviour such as vacuuming up carrot cake when your mother visits, instead of confronting age-old issues, or filling an emptiness caused by loneliness with a yard of Lindt.

One woman described to me an obese relative who had been sexually abused as a child, but refused to acknowledge or deal with the pain. This is the predicament of Precious, the title character in a film out this month: she is a morbidly obese, illiterate single parent who was, and continues to be, abused in heartbreaking ways.

Before embarking on a “new year, new me” panic dash to WeightWatchers, consider this: one of its own consultants reveals that only 16% of its most dedicated and successful members keep off in the long term what they initially lose. Indeed, failure rates run at about 95% for most diets, because, for many women, diets don’t solve the real issue: that eating is their emotional anaesthetic. And that psychological hunger is confused with real physical hunger.

Read the rest: http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/diet_and_fitness/article6970394.ece

My mother is morbidly obese, type 2 diabetic and on dialysis as a result. The harsh reality is that until her emotional issues were resolved her weight wasn't going to budge but it wasn't until she started dialysis that counselling was raised. So 30 years of trying one specialist after another and they didn't have the balls to collectively say "stop, no more pills and potions until you get yourself sorted".

If I could wish one thing for everyone facing similar problems it would be that the emotional support is offered before the weightloss pills. It's so hard anyway, why turn it into a downward spiral?

Lady_C_the_1st

What a brilliant article. It has hit the nail on the head. I have often thought that anybody who struggles with their weight would benefit from counseling to address the issues that are causing them to over/under eat.

It needs to be made more readily available considering all the problems that the U.K and the U.S in particular are having regarding weight and body issues.

Although I am only a few pounds off of where I want to be I do know that I eat for emotional reasons but I am aware of this and these reasons, I have not quite conquered it yet though and I self sabotage, I had a really emotional talk this morning with my OH and although it ended positively and we had a lovely evening together I have just eaten 4 mini chocolate bars and an ice cream. I did not know how to stop myself despite the fact that I was aware I was doing it.

I wish that more people were educated about how to deal with their feelings and that their was more help on how to address the underlying issues, which would then help with the external struggles of weight. It is sad that we are constantly bombarded with images of skinny models and are comparing ourselves to them from a young age but are not told that this isn't what we need to aim for. We don't need to be skinny, we need to be healthy. Our health is so important yet it is the last thing that companies advertising weight loss pills or candy bars think about.

Thanks for sharing the article. xx