The Benefits of Being Fat

FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 2013 | POSTED BY DR. GOULD


Who wouldn't want to lose weight? The answer to that question is not as simple as it may seem. We know the benefits of being thin, but there are benefits to being fat. The main one is that being overweight makes a lot of people feel safe. It is not a real sense of safety, but it must be understood before you can let it go.

"My weight is, I believe, one of the primary spiritual issues in my life... It is why I run from opportunities to lead and make excuses about my performance... It's why I dread dressing up in a suit and being the adult I should be at my age and station. It's why I shy away from friendships, and project rejection on others. It's why I am painfully selfish. It's why I'm often grouchy, mean and overly sensitive for no reason. It's why I'm jealous of others. It's a source of resentment at God." Michael Spencer, The Internet Monk

You could interpret Mr. Spencer's quotation, above, in two ways. First, you can think he is saying, "Because I am fat, I hide." On the other hand, he might be saying, "I stay fat or become fat in order to hide." The question is, which strategy resembles your own behavior?

You may be part of the first group. You became heavy and because you're heavy, and embarrassed about it, you're hiding from the world until you lose the weight. But even if this is how it happened to you, once fat has become useful as a way of avoiding and hiding, the "I will do it after I lose weight" becomes a hiding place.

In essence, using fat to keep you feeling safe is learned and can be unlearned. You learned to use food to smother your self-doubts, to reward yourself when you felt defeated and you also learned how to use food to keep you feeling safe. There's no gene that determines that.

You may have learned that being fat makes you feel safe when your father and mother divorced when you were eight, or when you were afraid of sex when you were fifteen, when you went away to college and would rather order in pizza than face the cafeteria, or six months after you got married and things weren't going as well as you would've liked, or after you first baby was born and you felt isolated and overwhelmed, or after your children left the house, or a during a separation from your spouse, or when menopause made you feel old, or when your parents died. Once we stumble upon the "fat as protection" solution, we find it serves many purposes, but here are some tips that can help break free and create your own sense of safety.
Face your anxiety instead of eating to give yourself the illusion of being safe or independent
Stop reinforcing your self-doubts by avoiding something important
Realize that your self-doubts make you more dependent, anxious, and sensitive to failing and embarrassment, and make you look for a hiding place
Start seeing how you eat more to feel safe, but that it doesn't make you safe, it just helps you avoid things and keeps you from recognizing the life decisions you've made that should be reviewed
The more that you follow these tips, the more you will discover that there are better ways to deal with the challenges you're hiding from, other than using fat as a cover-up and excuse.