I have noticed two types of individuals who have weight problems. Those who are capable of learning moderation, and those who are not. (For sake of argument, let's assume both people are not triggering metabolic sensitivities. Also, when you read this post, it would help to realize when I use collective pronouns I am referring to our culture and the obese collective. I full well understand there are exceptions and for some people it is as simple as carbs. I am not trying to say what I say applies to you individually.)

There are those people who, even if it isn't natural to them, learn to feel satisfied emotionally when eating "fun" or "unsafe" food. They eat half an apple, feel satisfied, and never progress to self destructive behaviors.

Then there are those people who are triggered into self destruction by attempting to eat "fun food". At first they might find an evening treat of half an apple indulgent. Then, they find they find that half boring and not as psychologically fulfilling as it used to be, so they need a whole apple. Soon they discover apples are just not doing the trick anymore. Then they move to store bought low carb apple pie. By the time they move to the processed food, it's all over. They eat the entire pie, and, whatever they can get their hands on. All this over eating and eating increasingly carby food is also messing up blood sugar. Soon they are back in the cycle.

What is the difference between these people? Why can one person feel satisfied, and another just loses control? Even more perplexing, why can some people "recover" and learn to eat normally, while this dream of control continues to elude others?

I believe it is how we perceive food which is the main difference. The first person is thinking "like an artist" - patient, calm, meditative, and enjoying the smallness and simplicity of their meal. Because they are more focused and attentive to details, normal and small portions saturates their brains with stimulus. This stimulus registers as pleasure, and, they satisfy emotional needs for food. They are more likely to find food associate activities a pleasure - the cooking, planning, and serving process are stress free and indulgent.

This theory raises two new questions.
1) How can all of us learn to think that way about food?
2) Why is it elusive to some, easily learned by others, and completely natural to a third segment of the population?

Differences in perception can explain the results of our behavior. It cannot explain why our perceptions are different to begin with, or, how to change them.
In a thread about this in the emotional eating forum, cartersg1 raises an excellent point I did not think of. The reason our perceptions are different is because our lifestyle, attitudes, and lifestyle demands are different. It's our stressful, faced paced lives which are making us stressed out compulsive eaters. We don't sleep enough, we don't spend enough time with our loved ones, and we don't take the time to make home made meals. We are always working or going to school or doing something. Constant stress does a lot of nasty things to our body. For one, it increases insulin resistance and makes us hungrier and store fat. It also does nasty things to your emotions and mind. It makes us want to eat fatty, salty, and/or sweet foods to relax and numb ourselves even when not really hungry. It makes us be in such a need state all the time that when we eat, we eat *so very much*. It's an emotional and physiological cycle.

There's more though...
I think it is stress that is causing us to feel so in need of relief, but it is our culture that is causing the obesity epidemic.
We don't know how to really enjoy ourselves. We don't see the value in anything around us, it is all for granted, all so trite. The west is obsessed with the future and productivity. This causes us to associate "pleasure" with novelty, new supercharged sensations, and getting the most for the least. If it isn't faster, bigger, louder, sweeter, or saltier than its predecessor, then it isn't what we're craving.

Our culture is so concerned with the future that the intrinsic value of the present escapes us. The thing is, valuing the present is the only way to ever feel truly satisfied and relieve stress. Other ways of relieving stress often make it worse in the long run. For example:

Our culture says "working a ridiculous amount and sleeping 4 hours a night so you can afford a huge car makes you happy". It does not say "a simple life with peace to reflect upon your world is actually better than working yourself to a heart attack death while stuck in traffic in your unsightly large car".

It is our cultural value system that says "the banquet 3 course carside to go meal at applebees will relieve your stress without sucking up precious time". It does not say "making the time to indulge in the simplicity of making a simple, beautiful, healthy small meal at home will make you feel even better".

We are so physiologically and psychologically stressed OUT, and, in a cycle, the ways we relieve our stress just make it worse in the long run. The psychological causes the physical, and back again, in a cycle.
We have rendered ourselves defective in that we are incapable of healthy meditation. It is so unnatural for us to sit, focus, observe and find this practice *enjoyable stress relief*. We say we don't have the time, but what we really mean to say is we don't desire to LEARN how to change the way we live.

Before we can learn to eat normally we need to resolve the stressful nature of our lives. We need to change the way we live and look at the world. We need to redefine our values, and what it means to enjoy ourselves and feel satisfied. We need to sleep, we need to be in the sunshine and take walks, we need to purge ourselves of all this extra that doesn't really make us happy and just chains us to so much work. We need to free ourselves from pressure and stress and live like we were meant to live. With that, the body will heal, and when the body heals, so does the mind.

Thoughts?

Oh boy....this is a huge topic Woo!!! I think that it come to the old topic of nature vs nurture. I'm not good at writing about this stuff but will give it a go anyway.

Some of us are more prone to having addictive type personalities. I will speak of my own experience and I'm sure that it will resonate with some.

My mom was a compulsive over eater, her dad was a severe alcoholic and their entire family suffered from his disease. My mom's mom was the Martyr and suffered in silence. My mom became a martyr in her marriage and while my dad was not a drinker, he was still an impatient, abusive and nasty man to both my mom and me.....

While you speak in general terms of lifestyle and stress, I think that what we learn as children is very hard to unlearn as adults. So if being a martyr and not expressing our true feelings, is what we learn from our mothers.....that is the way we will go about our lives as adults until we go on our own search of discovery...to learn about ourselves and make changes.

I always like this quote by Socrates: " A life unexamined is a life not worth living.

Then there's the old Serenity prayer which says so much in just a few words:
"God,
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can......and the wisdom to know the difference."

I have done alot of reading over the years: The Road Less Traveled by M Scott Peck, Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller, Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman MD...and the list goes on and on. Along with all my years in therapy, I think that I have gotten to the root of some of my problems and uncovered my own "story" in the process.

I will not compare myself to those who have never had a weight issue or an eating/food issue...it just would not be fair to me. I am unique as we each are...making broad generalities to try to understand an aspect of myself does not work for me.

So in the end, I think that its a combination of nature and nurture that makes us who we are.....overeaters, undereaters......obsessed with how we look and filled with diseased thinking about our bodies. The books that I read from OA were extremely helpful as they are filled with stories of hope and recovery from this diseased thinking. And that is what it is...diseased thinking!! We need to replace the diseased thoughts with positive ones and fight back against the beast that speaks to us in our heads. It may sound corny to some but its the only way I know that worked for me.

Speaking from my own experience: I live a fairly busy life. I work full-time, I am finishing another college degree and go to school full time, I'm married, I have two small children (4&7) whom I take to various sporting events throughout the week (basketball, gymnastics, boy scouts), I own a home, I have a nice car, I am fairly stable financially. . . . I live a fairly busy life, a fairly typical life.

I'm not unhappy. In fact, this is quite possibly the happiest I've been as an adult. I don't even obsess too much about my weight (which could be a good or bad thing, depending on how you view it). I want to be healthier, so I'm willing to eat healthier.

The problem with the idea that people need to simplify their lives is that most people thrive on a little stress. Plus, what's the fun of life if you don't have a few luxeries? Personally, I like my huge SUV (its a very pretty vehicle) and am willing to work to have it. I like my home, I like being able to afford nice things for my children and myself. While working does cause me stress which does tend to make me eat more . . . . it doesn't necessarily make me unhappy. I certainly had a lot more stress when I was struggling to pay bills, struggling to find money for nice things, struggling to discover what I wanted to do with my life. Personally, I think that obese people tend to think of food as a reward . . . and lots of sweet/salty high carb food as a big reward. Change that thought, and you could probably save me a whole lot of grief. What if I could view food as fuel instead of as something to give me pleasure? I think that I will always have a problem with food as long as I take such great pleasure in it. That's the good thing about Atkins . . . you get your fill and pleasure from food that is healthy and helps control your weight. You don't necessarily have to give up that pleasure, you just derive pleasure from different kinds of food.

Just my two cents.

I definitely agree; people need challenges, and, there's nothing wrong with luxuries. I am not saying that it is natural to have no stress (it's not) and that we should be monks with no possession who live simplicity or anything.

The point I was trying to make is that when we get into this mode of living where we lose who we are and are just doing something for some reason all the time... that's not healthy and it stresses us out big time. I think a lot of us are living like that, in a state of relentless unnatural stress with no repreave. We go nuts or do self destructive things to release the pressure.

I mean, maybe this is a stereotype but back in the day I imagine one parent worked 9-5, and, the other tended house. The family had a meal together and there was plenty of time for the things that were important. THEMSELVES. That doesn't exist today. Both parents are working, often in debt, cannot afford what they own nevermind what they are trying to buy, there is no family meal, people barely spend time with each other because everyone is on the go, etc. I do think this business is perceived as stress, and, it is contributing to our collective tendency to abuse food... and the marketability of drug food itself.

Great post.
BTW...as an American...I have always wondered...why are so many of our poor so obese as well?

From my understanding of US social history, "back in the day" when women were forced to sit at home and be "mommy" all day and have dinner on the table by the time dad got home . . . there were a whole lot of unfullfilled, lonely, depressed women taking medications to keep them "happy" with the life they were handed. Personally, I'd rather live in today's society (as a woman) in which I actually have choices about what to do with my life. Health isn't simply about physical well-being or an ideal BMI; its about self-fullfillment, happiness, and the freedom to make choices about ones own life. Now, that ideal health certainly isn't being achieved by everyone (not by a long shot), but I think it far more attainable today than in any other point in history.

Sing it!!


Sing that even louder!!

As far as the French...they invented the "hypermarche." Bigger than a supermarket, the "hypermarket." When did they invent it? In the 1970s. While they do have great farmer's markets in some places, they all go to Carrefour (which is like a CostCo mated with a SuperTarget, plus a cheese market and fish market). There are more compact ones in urban locations, but there are nearly 200 Carrefour stores in France (cliquez ici). You'd have to be from a pretty remote district not to have been to one - plus they are international, with nearly 7000 hypermarkets around the world (cliquez-moi).

I just don't agree that life is somehow harder or more complex now. Brain scans of Aboriginal Australians living out in the bush showed they lead complicated mental lives and dream just as complex dreams as modern urban humans. Complexity and stress are a part of the human experience.

Keep in mind that you are saying this from the perspective of having always had a choice.
I find it interesting that we have come full circle from those days and now those who make the choice to stay home and be 'mommy' all day are looked down on by those who choose to have full time careers and perhaps even forgo having children in favor of having a career. IMO, if someone is bored and unhappy the great majority of the time they have noone to blame for that but themselves.

I dunno, half my mom friends are slinging back pills and binge drinking to make up for the void. And the work of childrearing and homemaking is still all on them. But probably to a lesser degree than any other time, for sure.

I do agree that nurture plays a strong role. Like you I come from a family of addicts and escapists. My father and his father and his father were alcoholics. My mother is a compulsive eater, her mother also prone to addictions. Both my father and my mother's family had gambling problems. All manners of addictions are there. The only substances/behaviors we are free from are the illegal ones, and in an ironic twist of fate, that might only be because we have very little tolerance to social stress so we are introverted (and drugs are usually first introduced socially). OTOH alcohol and food addiction tend to be passed down in the generations first before friends. So the thing that stops us from being drug addicts might actually be contributing to our stress levels and thus need to abuse other more accessable substances. I know if I ever was exposed to drugs earlier it's probably very likely I would have had a problem. Thank god I had food (and then dieting) which are relatively benign in comparison.

So yea there is a lot of nature... in how you tend to deal with stress and how much stress you tend to accumulate. What stresses out one person doesn't bother another.

But I still think our environment has raised the stress level collectively and in a very unnatural way. Yes life then was hard and had challenges. However people just are not free like they were back then. Our lives are so structured and confined and there is so little that is natural or ad lib about the way we live... this itself is highly stressful.

i agree with this. but in my situation i know that for me, from a small child i was criticised for my weight by my family (i was only a few pounds overweight). i was constantly restricted food, and pestered about what i ate. and of course, what do we always want?? what we cant have. i would sneak it, and inhale it (didnt want to get caught of course). it got to be like a rebellion rather than a hunger that drove me. at least thats where i think it started.
i think my younger sister may have had the same issue but then my brother, who was third in line and a BOY, never had those restrictions and didnt end up obese like we did either.

There is definately big problems n the Western world. More than we like to admit.

In Australia, because we are english speaking, we are heavily influenced by American culture as is most of the world.

We are plugged into American television, movies, and internet. The American Fast food culture has taken us over! Asian countries call Australian an American colony.

This frustrates me, because most of the problems we face are caused by this.
Suddenly Aussies all want to work long hours and be soo materialistic. I suppose we were always that way!

Courtesy and good many are gone in modern life. Funnily enough customer service is gone down

Now how government wants to de-regulate the workforce, to make us more like Americans! Our CEOs in Australia, if they are not Americans themselves are paid obscene amounts of money because we have to compete with Americans!

You can't have a hollywood movie these days without an Aussie involved!

Where are we going we our obesity problems ? Just look At America!
Instead of loking at the good and bad things that a country like America does, we just try to emulate them without doing it our way

It's sad too because our kids are fatter than ever, and it's partly due to McDonalds and the like!

Very thought provoking post.

In my view, overeating is a naturally occurring phenomenon not only to humans, but just about every other species as well. I’d imagine that just about every animal overeats if given the means and opportunity. In that sense, it strikes me that our propensity to overeat is very normal, while eating in moderation would be abnormal.

Given that over the past century, we all have the means and opportunity to eat in whatever amounts at any given moment, it is hardly surprising that obesity rates are climbing in western society where food is in such readily available abundance. Even in the past, the wealthy had access to unlimited food and were often marked by corpulence.

I don’t necessarily agree that the rigors and demands of modern society are the cause of obesity. Perhaps, it would be more accurate to assert that the abundance of available foods of every kind made possible by modernity highly increases the possibility that an individual over indulges. I’ve found that many “successful” people (meaning those who work long hours and exercise regularly) simply don’t have the time to overeat. For example, for the person who wakes up at 6 am for a morning run, then dash to the office without breakfast working a full day (to achieve that big house and fancy car) and not eating until 8 or 9 pm has almost no opportunity to over indulge in food. It doesn’t mean their respective lives are any less stressful, but merely that “eating” isn’t as important as achieving, however the individual defines successful achievement.

In my humble opinion, those with the highest propensity to overeat are usually those whose utility of satisfaction from eating foods supersedes their satisfaction from other pursuits. For these individuals, it would require extreme discipline to refrain from eating too much. The same can be said for those who covet material success. These individuals are obsessive compulsives driven to overwork—the only difference is that getting fat in the bank account has a very different result than putting on added girth around the waist.

In closing, I don’t think our obesity is the result of our cultural tendencies, but rather a result of our natural instinct for human progress, which as a direct result created such an over abundance of readily available food that people find difficult to resist. As per the Oscar Wilde adage, “the only way to rid temptation is to yield to it.”

This certainly isn’t the politically correct answer, but as in just about everything in life, it really just comes down to discipline. It would be truly extraordinary that the interminable human spirit could withstand the great wars, build the great pyramids of Egypt, place a person on the moon, split the atom, and run the 4 minute mile—and, yet be utterly powerless to refrain from overeating.

With kindest regards,

Frederick

wow,

your post was not only thought provoking but extremely well put.

anyhow, your posts seem to be some of the most intelligent and logical ones on here. Very impressive, I'm glad this forum has someone like you on it.

just thought I'd point that out.

I agree but I think even when animals over eat, they can regulate their weight in the long runa ssuming no metabolic disease exists.

For example, there is this naturally thin girl I know, I think we *all* know her... if she eats a giant bowl of pasta, a pizza, soda, etc for dinner, she won't gain weight. Why? She has a very high resistance to metabolic disease. That is to say, no matter what or how much she eats, her body still can use energy well. Therefore, over a long term continuum of time, her body will decrease appetite and increase lipolysis as appropriate to conserve a relatively normal weight range. This does not happen for me and for those of us who become obese.

Metabolic diseases are caused by the combination of drug-like, plentiful food and the lifestyle stressors which makes us crave it.

I think eating in moderation is unnatural. It is popular, though, because it is the way we have learned to circumvent the obesity that would result from the combination of food availability and an environment that is a hotbed for metabolic diseases. Unfortunately most people are more like me and not like the thin girl - if we eat whatever we want with abandon we pile on fat like nobody's business and rapidly disintegrate in health.



I don't think it is causing obesity as a phenomena, but, I think it is the reason it is an epidemic. For it to be so *common* today means things are triggering it. It can't just be food availability. For example, you say the rich had obesity - but did the rich look like america? No, most were relatively thin and healthy, although, of course there were a few who were obese because obesity can only exist when food is plentiful (and those were probably just supersensitive to obesity, and, would be even fatter today). Food has not been *scarce* for a period of time well before the obesity epidemic.

This implies to me it is more than food availability that is causing this epidemic of obesity. It is also more than carbs, since people ate plenty of those in the context of plentiful food diets, without an obesity epidemic.
I do think that the combination of food, plus stressful unnatural lifestyles that is really doing it.

I don't see the obesity epidemic correlating with lack of severe poverty (food availability enough to facilitate over eating). What I do see obesity correlating with is the disintegration of our societies, our families, and increasing consumerism with simultaneously decreasing job & wealth creating opportunities.
I also see the demand for substance foods and take out foods increase too, along with the stress.

This is a casual observation of course, I've no facts to support it... but it just seems to me when we REALLY started getting fat is when life started getting less natural and by extension more stressful.

Catalysts (stress, food, individual sensitivities to metabolic disease) -> metabolic state -> long term weight result

Some of us will remain thin even when stressed to the limit and eating an entire order of pasta from olive garden nightly. We will avoid metabolic disease and obesity.
Others become obese at the drop of a hat.
Most of us are in between. It follows, then, that most of us will become increasingly less healthy (which has heaviness as a symptom) the more we expose ourselves to these catalysts such as stress, food (quantity/quality).

I am not saying obesity is a disease of the successful. I'm not saying striving for success causes unhappiness, stress, and obesity. Obviously that's not true - it's a disease of the poor and middle class mostly. But this isn't about success, it is about stress and fulfillment and that's not an absolute relationship. To explain this paradox of why those who are busiest and most successful are often thin: it might be that those who are successful simply can handle stress better and thrive on it, whereas those of us who are more "normal" wilt. They can multitask better and are highly stress resistant.

Also, let's not forget the relationship between stress and food abuse is likewise not absolute.
The existence of stress does not necessarily mean that food abuse will be the choice way to deal with it. We all choose to relieve stress in different ways. In the lower classes it is more acceptable to use food for that purpose. The upper classes which are more image conscious are less likely to abuse food for stress relief - after all using food for this purpose is so pedestrian and common. Ironically, the upper classes are more likely to become compulsive exercisers and dieters for stress relief (there's the anorexic stereotype of the white, overachieving perfect girl for one).

Either way, that successful, very busy people often avoid obesity doesn't invalidate the idea that our stressful lifestyle is contributing to obesity collectively. Most of middle class and lower class people who are struggling to pay for the things they own and want and just working themselves to death are obese.


Fredrick I have to disagree with you on a point here.
I disagree that over eating causes obesity. I think metabolic disease causes obesity, and over eating is but one of many catalysts for metabolic disease in susceptible people. As a person predisposed to obesity I am WELL aware of how my body is different. If "normal people" eat a big meal (over eat), their bodies compensate. They felt full, they burned more energy. They didn't pile on weight. My body did. The more I ate, the hungrier and less satisfied I felt, the lower my energy and more apathetic and lethargic i become. It is such an irony that in the context of carbs, eating LESS can improve my perception of satiety and increase how efficiently my body uses energy...but it's true.

I agree that discipline affects how fat you become, or how much weight you lose when not optimally healthy.
There is probably a strong correlation between weight suppression (stifling the "symptom") and success. Both tend to imply high resistance to stress, or, a sophisticated way of channeling stress (creative thinking, or, natural ability, whatever... both help success). It also shows an ability to bare down and do what it takes (at whatever unpleasant cost) to achieve.

However, I don't think becoming obese is necessarily indicative of failings. I think suppressing obesity is indicative of exceptionally (in ability to tolerate stress, work ethic, dedication, whatever). It doesn't work in reverse, since, it is common today to become obese due to such a high preponderance of catalysts that could cause obesity (extreme stress and food). As anyone can see, obesity is natural and common. Thinness is either unnatural or uncommon depending on who we are talking about.

Thing is Frederick, I didn't do those things and neither did you, but a few exceptional humans did. Most people at the time were average and doing average things, just like today.

Obesity is NOT caused by a lack of willpower and discipline. Failure to suppress obesity ("diet") might be, but, it's ultimately not the source of the problem. It is metabolic disease that causes obesity and weight gain. I know we can suppress weight - that's not what I'm talking about.

What's causing the disease? Why is there a need to suppress weight to begin with?
Like I said earlier, it can't be food, and it can't be willpower deficiencies, because there has been plenty of food and plenty of people over eating AND staying thin over the long term of time, too.