Are most obese people addicted to food or do they

I truly don't know why I struggle so much. Maybe just weak? Low self esteem? Poor self control? LOVE food? I don't know. It has just been my problem forever. Some people smoke, or drink, gamble, do drugs...I eat. Also, I do not exercise like I should. HATE to exercise. Ugh. Don't know why...this is just me. :huh:

Finally been able to break this, but I ate when I was sad, happy, angry, bored. My friends like to celebrate with eating. It was just a lot of eating for the wrong reasons. I get now it's to fuel your body not make sadness go away and when I'm happy I exercise instead. I'm not sure if I was ever addicted, but I used it to "fix" my emotions.

For me, personally, it is an addiction with an emotional connection. I have only been able to begin making changes *this* time because I finally addressed the emotional issues in therapy a few months ago.. I still struggle with it. The hard part about it being an addiction is that you have to have food... unlike an alcoholic, who can actually be sober and make that choice every day, all day long, a food addict cannot choose NOT to eat. I realized that the things I was truly addicted to (meaning, I craved them constantly, and could never get enough, felt crabby and cranky unless I ate those things, and even then I wanted more) were sweets (chocolate, cake, candy, etc.), cheese (pizza, nachos, etc.), and caffeine (pop/soda and coffee drinks). I quit those cold turkey at the beginning of June, and have lost 26 pounds since then. I still struggle, when I get depressed, I find that I immediately want those same things I used to turn to for comfort. But I'm slowly learning (not without mistakes!) to replace them with other things that are better for me, like exercise. I know there will be lots of people who disagree and say that if I'm fat I must just eat too much. I HAVE eaten too much, but there is a LOT more to it, at least for me.

I wish I knew...I know for my oldest daughters father I think he learned it from his father....the men are very obese in that family and they really eat a lot. And his g/f now had lapband I don't know how long ago but apparently by the way she eats and looks didn't follow the diet. My daughter is overweight and she is constantly eating and we are constantly fighting with her and I am trying to show her a good example but it's falling on deaf ears and blind eyes with her. I don't think it's a clear cut answer I think for each person it's different.

Barring genetic conditions, you'll find food intake is what drives the weight gain. What drives that level of food intake varies with each person... it could be addiction, self-medication, self-loathing... demons in the closet as you call it, you name it, there will be a rationale and something driving it. For *some* there is just a lack of understanding that they're no longer active, growing kids so can't get away with super-sized portions!

I have found my eating easier to control as I have come to understand my mental health issues better and sought help for those.

It's still not *easy*, but it's certainly more manageable than it was.

Your aunt would seem to have self-esteem issues on the face of it, but it could be much more complex than that. Certainly I think she would benefit from some counselling by a professional...

I truly, 100% believe it's an addiction. I believe that obesity isn't tackled the same as overweight when it comes to weight loss. For me, I spent years eating whatever. I didn't go out of my way to eat, really, but when it was around, I had absolutely no filter to say no. I convinced myself that I was due certain things-- a Big Mac at the end of a work day, donuts the next morning, brownies in the break room and candy bars that floated around the office. To be honest, it never *seemed* like I was eating *that* much. I mean, sure, I knew I was eating badly, but it wasn't like I was finishing off a bag of Doritos every day. I had meals, I had snacks... and yeah, they could have been better... but still, food is food, right?

I thought I was a fat piece of you-know-what when I graduated high school weighing about 175 pounds. Sometime between that, college graduation and having a daughter, I ballooned to 371 pounds. THREE-HUNDRED-SEVENTY-ONE freaking pounds. I had no idea how it happened. And it happened slowly enough that I somehow didn't notice. I mean, I did, but seriously-- I more than doubled my body weight.

Back then, I would eat when I was bored, sad, happy... pretty much any emotion warranted me to justify what I was eating. My eating was so out of control and I had no idea. If you'd asked me back then, I would have estimated that I was eating 2000 calories a day. In reality, there is no way it was less than 4000. Even more in some cases.

You'd think that somewhere around 250 pounds I would have stopped eating like a starving cow. But I didn't. In fact, the sadder I became about my weight, the fatter I became. It was a spiral that took some SERIOUS soul searching to get out of.

I've lost 50 some-odd pounds as of today. I have a long, long way to go, but I'm not in the same mindset anymore. I stopped filling emotional holes with food and, voila-- I lost weight. I'm writing a book now called "Know Yourself" about how being honest with yourself and not putting yourself in harm's way (food-wise) are keys to weight loss for obese people. Hopefully I'll help somebody out there who is struggling with food addiction in the same way I was! (Yeah, um, I'm not publishing 'til I get to my goal weight, which will hopefully be at the end of next year.)

In regard to how you look at the obese, remember that they got that way ounce by ounce. They didn't start off that way. For many, it is an addiction to food, that, in my opinion, may be harder to break than addictions to cigarettes or drinking... because you NEED to eat food to live, and you're surrounded by cheap, crappy food ALL the time. I mean, think about it-- imagine a crack addict surrounded by crack dealers selling crack for .99. That's what dollar menus are to many obese people. IMHO.

definately food, today food portions are bigger and more calorific, plus there is more choice. Here in the UK the amount of takeaways and fast food resturants has increased in the last 10 to 20 years. I remember growing up there was only McDonalds nearby and that was about 4 miles away, not far but as a teenager who relied on public transport it was far away (oh and that is in London too) In supermarkets too there is more choice, breakfast cereals with chocolate in, more variety of biscuits, larger packets of crisps, microwave meals.
Family dynamics change, my mum cooked all our dinners for us in the evening, now microwave meals and cheap food is fuller of artificial flavourings, colour and are highly calorific, thats is why the less well off population are more likely to become obese, my excuse is because i like my food.

I have always just ate and drank basically what I wanted and this is where I ended up!

mine was more medical.
i blew my back out twice & now im disabled. i can not move like i used too. they had me on some heavy pain meds & steriods.
then the depression set in, which made things worse!! & ofcourse more meds for the depression. the weight piled on.
my whole lifestyle changed. it was a very hard reality to deal with, because i was so young. life was not worth living.
my food choices were not the best. i thought i was eating healthy, but i wasnt.
it wasnt till my health took a dowmward spiral & the docs put me on the diabetic diet & the dietatician referred me to mfp that i learned to eat healthy, live healthy & be healthy.
my world has changed since i came here. i quit my meds, reversed my health issues & im learning to live in a whole new way.
so not every person is large because they eat too much. some may be medical problems, some may be addicition, some may be depression, or abuse. some may be their enviroment & not knowing the skills to live healthy.
the world is a different place than it was 30 years ago, where everyone was skinny, & large was the abnornal.
everyone has a different battle or demon.
i try hard to never judge anyone unless ive walked a mile in their shoes. thats my lifes motto.

I'm not addicted to food, but I eat chocolate and sugar to self-medicate for depression and to stabilize my mood. I have tried chemical anti-depressants, but chocolate and sugar have the same effect at much lower financial cost, fewer other side effects except (duh!) weight gain, and with the added benefit of being fun.

I'm in the process of transitioning to exercise as my primary anti-depressant--hence the weight loss--but I'm able to do that right now because I have a little more free time in my life right now than I have in the past. When I'm crunched for time, I can multi-task eating chocolate with any desk work. It's hard to multi-task exercise.

As a completely unrelated issue, my job has occasional spikes of intensely demanding mental activity, which I can ONLY do if fueled by simple carbs. For the past six months, I've been mostly avoiding those--another component of my recent weight loss--but that was a conscious decision to use this time to put my health ahead of work performance in order to accomplish specific health-related goals. I can't do that forever and still keep my job.

So for RIGHT NOW, my life is working out to make weight loss possible, but I didn't gain 75 pounds by choice or because I'm lazy or because I didn't know what I was doing to myself. I made a conscious decision to accept fatness as a survival strategy. No, I don't like being fat, but considering the alternatives, I still think I made the choices I had to make at the time.

Could I have made different choices? Yes, but that would have required being a lot more able to demand time for myself and to demand the things necessary to manage depression in other ways. NOW I'm the kind of person who can make those demands, but it took me a long time to get to this point.

I think it is something in the brain. I know there is a part of your brain that tells you you are full. I think in some people it doesn't work right and makes people over eat.

I think it is something in the brain. I know there is a part of your brain that tells you you are full. I think in some people it doesn't work right and makes people over eat.

People over eat sometimes, but then they're stomachs grow bigger and can put down a lot of food. The whole US is about fast, fast, fast. In and out. People don't sit and enjoy food either. They scarf it down their face and don't allow their bodies time to feel full.

i know that with me, it started with self medication, i developed depression at a young age and food made me feel good. I could just take it in my room and eat and eat. By the time i was in my late teens it was a full blown addiction, when i was stressed or depressed or lonely food was my first response. I could be stuffed, but if someone mentioned food my stomach would growl and i would feel like i was starving... and it wouldn't go away until i ate. I have worked VERY hard to put this behind me, but just like other addictions... one day at a time...

I don't consider myself "addicted" to food.. I'm an emotional eater, I eat when I get sad, depressed, which is most of the time LOL. Sometimes I eat too just because I'm bored and the food is there. I've been trying to only eat when I'm hungry lately, and I do eat a lot less but still the emotional issues are there. It's a little easier with people on here that are so supportive and motivating, but when you don't really have any friends like that in real life, well that just sucks But people on here are better than having no one at all.

I am really interested in this subject. I myself became obesed yeah i said it lol anyway in the last two years do to medication i was on cymbaltia for depression after i went though a loss anyway again and that med put me into a deep deep depression almost bi polar state i was afriad to go out of my house i needed my fiancee for everything my kids were lost without me and then one day i decided to go see a docter and he took me off the meds and its been two months and im back to my oldself im not really addicted to food but i know that there are many reasons why people are overweight it could be not knowing any better its how they were reaised or it comfort food because thats one thing that doesnt cause them pain right away and its ur genetics I know that all of them reasons can be beat if u stick ur mind to it and have a good support group