Are most obese people addicted to food or do they

i was never addicted to food. i would eat out of boredom and eat because it tasted so damn good.

I was never technically obese, but I was 30 pounds overweight. I have no addiction issues or internal struggles that made me fat. I simply love to cook and love to eat.

I am a geneticist. There are some links to genetics, certain markers that make a person more prone to be obese, but I am afraid most of it is due to habits. I do feel a bit sorry for all the Americans on this site, the US food industry is awesome, if I lived in the US the huge temptation and accessibility to high cal food would be very hard to resist!

i was never addicted to food. i would eat out of boredom and eat because it tasted so damn good.

I think this comes the closest to where I was.

Also, when it got to a certain point, I just *didn't care anymore*. I was already so fat, what was the point? Eating was fun, I like food, I can cook well, I would just eat large portions of everything all of the time. It wasn't an addiction, per se, I just let it all happen. I would buy and eat whatever I wanted. I knew it wasn't the right way to eat, but it didn't matter to me anymore. I knew that it would make me gain weight to eat what I was eating, but I didn't care what happened to me. I think in hindsight, I was very depressed. I don't know if it was the weight making me eat more and not care, or just life making me depressed and thus not care about anything else. But this went on as long as I can remember - from my early 20's onward. I lost weight briefly after my first child was born - went as far down as 205, then went back up again.

I'm not sure what changed, exactly, but on New Year's Eve, the number on the scale really GOT to me. I cared, finally. I didn't want to live the rest of my life feeling awful and physically and mentally.

i am not in any way addicted to food, nor do i really eat a whole lot. I have just been know to make poor choices

For me? Well I am very hyper and am usually bouncing around the place. I love sweets too but have always eaten a lower amount of calories. Except I will snack when I'm bored and I honestly can't tell much of a difference from when I am hungry and when I am not.

Being a boredom eater and having ADHD made things difficult for me in middle school and high school because I was always grounded or my mom wouldn't allow me to go out and play. In elementary school I wasn't allowed out of the house until after she got home. So if I got out at 3 then I'd be waiting in the house until 8p when it would be far too late to go out. Middle school I wasn't allowed out until my grades were raised except moving schools to one that was a year ahead of the other meant I missed some big lessons. Then eventually I gave up in school and by high school was always grounded for skipping or getting expelled for skipping because I took that time to see friends. For a period of time I'd sneak out and joined my schools rugby team where I dropped 40lbs just from the activity and started walking to and from school just so I could see my friends (was about a mile to two mile walk each way). Except when my mom caught on I then wasn't allowed out again and was being watched more.

Then in college I was in a very bad relationship which I'm now out of. Early was a social thing by this point. It was always "let's go meet ____ for lunch and then ____ for dinner." I began to pack on weight again with this type of environment and was quite stressed with my relationship. Once the relationship ended I dropped about 30lbs and then gained a bit back while in a new relationship with someone who eats all the time but is super thin no matter what, adapted to a vey busy schedule juggling work and school, and shifting to working overnight.

I feel like since realizing that I don't have to eat when my girlfriend does and making sure I sleep more than 6 hours I've lost weight. I've also tried to work out a lot more since I am high energy and need an outlet otherwise i'll have bad anxiety and pick fights with those around me subconsciously out of boredom. It's not really the food other than eating when I'm not hungry because I'm bored or its social. Mainly it's the activity. And dear god I feel so bad for those around me which have to deal with me when I miss a day of working out.

I think food addiction is possible BUT a lot of the time I find women especially use "emotional eating" as a thing to hide behind because for some reason it seems to be socially unacceptable for women to enjoy eating or have an appetite. But if it's some kind of emotional problem then that's acceptably feminine or something.

For instance I never have any problems with eating for emotional reasons when I am not on a diet, because when I am not on a diet I don't think about food, it's in the background of life, always there but in the background, but on a diet because I feel deprived then the second I am unhappy or angry or anything else the desire to put energy into forcing myself not to have the things I want goes away and suddenly it looks like I am emotionally eating, but I am no more emotionally eating than if I was trying really hard to do some math problems and someone made me angry and I no longer had the motivation to do my work that I would be emotionally not doing math. Not doing math doesn't help with emotion, but having emotional upsets sure stops me focusing on math (including the upset of being distractingly happy).

I think a lot of people who just feel hungry think that they eat for emotional reasons when really the emotion just reduces their ability to focus on not eating when they are hungry. Hunger is a drive after all like sex and breathing and going to the toilet. It takes a lot of effort to fight it, and the energy or motivation to do so might go away when other things come up.

I am speaking from the perspective of the daughter of an obese person. My mother was obese all my life. I remember being 14 and giving her a hug and not being able to get my arms to touch around her. Her whole family is obese since they were children, all her sisters, my uncle and my grandmother died of diabetes with she was 53. But my Mom never ate very much. I personally think her body was in starvation mode her whole life. She would starve herself and was not very active and then when she did eat her body stored it as fat for the next fast. She eventually had gastric bypass and then got really sick and did loose all the weight.

There is one thing I tell my mom thank you for all the time. And this is that she didnt pass it on to me and my sisters. From a very young age. She taught us to eat only until we were full. We could stop as soon as we felt the urge that we were satisfied. We never had to clean our plates. She never bought soda, candy, or sugary cereal and we only ate whole grain bread and snacks were all we could eat fruit and carrots. We could always get seconds of anything we wanted but we did have to finish all the vegetables and protein before we could get another baked potato. One day a week we would have a huge salad bar in our kitchen for dinner with chilled pasta baby shrimp and nuts and we all got to build our own huge plate of salad we loved it. And her efforts paid off. My cousins are all really over weight. But me and my sisters we only struggle with the little extra 15-20 lbs that every woman battles to keep off after having children or not really watching what we eat all the time. And I followed her example with my children also. They can have an apple baby carrots or a banana or any other kind of fruit that we have on hand with out even asking at any time of the day or night. They say YAY! when I bring home mangos or watermelon and they are all at a healthy weight. My mom broke the cycle, it was to late for her.

Her health still suffers to this day but I have fond memories of the "Popsicle's" she would make of sliced peeled cantaloupe that she would put in the freezer and we would eat frozen by the pool instead of sugary treats

how can you not be addicted to food? you have to have it every day... so everyone is addicted to it, but some people can control it better.

i don't know why i'm obese, i don't think i have a whole pile of massive psychological skeletons in my closet, i just love food, and even though i love exercise, i love food more...

I can't speak for every other obese person out there, I can only speak for me. My childhood was happy, I'm fairly well adjusted, comfortable with most aspects of my life. I don't blame genetics/addiction or anything but me. I'm the person who put the food in my mouth and I will tell you that I love food.

In the past, I've eaten or overindulged for every emotional reason, bored, stressed, happy, mad etc. BUT In the past I've also eaten or overindulged because I really, really like food. Not every meal has had the same motivation, and not every obese person has the same cause.

Until your message, I didn't realize that being obese has had a good side effect; it has taught me not to judge anyone by their size. I don't wonder about what causes a person who is skinny or what causes someone to be large. "Be kind, for everyone is fight their own hard battle"

I don't think you can generalise. It's not the case that obses people are either addicted to food or they just eat a lot. There aren't only 2 reasons why people put weight on.

For myself it is to do with being on Prednisolone for years. I have never eaten loads and I'm not addicted to food.

It was not an addiciton for me, nor was it emotional eating - for me it was the brain washing from my parents growing up that I must eat all on my plate. Even if I was full and didnt want it, I had to clear my plate. That was my problem. I'm not addicited to anything, not even nicotine anymore Allen Carr's Easy Way for me). Though I do love buying clothes and baby clothes for my new son.

We always had proper home cooked food, I never came home from school, to a sandwich or a crappy beans on toast - I came home to meat/2 veg. But the portions were adult sizes.

I feel this was because my mum grew up in a very poor large family - as was the case in 1940's North of England - big families, little food. And therefore she thought she was looking after her family and showing love by feeding us up. Both my mum and dad were hard working loving parents who brought us up very well, but mum would over feed us. Not crap food, but over feed us on home cooked proper dinners.

So no obession, additiction, emotional eating, or lack of self control for me - but being made to believe I had to clear my plate. It took me a long time to learn I didnt have to. And even now at 38 yrs old I sometimes get nervous that I havent cleared my plate! It's almost like you are doing something wrong, juvenile brain washing is very strong and can be long lasting.

My personal issue that made me obese was portion control. I like healthy foods and have eaten healthfully for years, but just ate too much of those foods.

Bump

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 couldn't agree more...the same things, the same feelings...it's just so hard! I smoked all my life until I felt it just hurts to think about one more cigarette and stopped all at once. It was 4 years ago...I wish I could do the same with food, but we can't, this is the tricky part!