For me I think it was because I was raised by a mother who used manipulation and control and was very over authoritative. She was just plain old mean much of the time thinking being a firm disciplinarian was the best way to parent. My sister became anxiety filled and I turned to food big time. I can remember as a very young child sneaking and eating tons of sugary snacks and such in my room. I was stuffing pain. My mother was also very accusatory too...she still is at almost 80 yrs old and very suspicious. I remember it used to drive me crazy some of the stuff she thought we were up to. Now I see it is just plain wrong and I no longer have to seek or get her approval.

Oh man. I'm still trying to figure this one out.

I remember always wanting to eat lots of food. I can remember sneaking to get extra servings, raiding the pantry, hiding food, etc. from a very early age. I was sexually abused. Both of my parents are overweight. My brother has never been obese like me though. I was also a latchkey kid and had free reign to eat whatever I wanted after school (Hot Pockets and Pot Pies!). As I got older and my weight caused depression, I ate to comfort myself. I've always wanted to eat more than was acceptable. I need to ask my mom if I was a hungry baby too.

But what actually started it all? I think I was just born programmed with a strong desire to eat. I see it in my nephew. He loves food. He's 18 months. Nothing traumatic has happened to him. He not addicted to cheetohs or soda or a heavy carb diet. He eats healthy food, just wants to eat too much of it. It's just how he was made.

All the other things/reasons in my life, are just me using or allowing my tendency to overeat serve other roles.

My mom told me I was a very hungry baby from day one. Her doctor gave her a bottle-feeding schedule, and my mom told me that I would scream bloody murder unless she gave me a lot more than that. As soon as I finished one bottle, I apparently cried for a second one.

I sometimes think we "overpsychologize" our desire to eat. Some people just have bigger appetites than others, IMO.

Freelance

I think you're right. I'm coming to the realization that no one thing caused me to overeat. I just lean that way and I never learned how to moderate it or being from a fat family, how much I needed to.

Some people definitely overthink it and also turn food into an enemy or some sort of forbidden fruit or an obsession. I know I have. Maybe as I go along on my journey, I'll find some trigger food that I need to avoid, but right now, my trigger is giving food too much power.

I started overeating when I was 14. Before that I had been really sick for a couple of weeks and lost so much weight. Once I got healthy, my mom was so happy that I was feeling better that she kept stuffing me with delicious meals and basically spoiling me (buying me everything I wanted). I can't blame her, she was just happy I wasn't sick anymore. But somehow I ended up associating feeling good with food. After that, I just kept eating more than I had to and nobody stopped me. It took me a while to figure out what I was doing wasn't right, but it's hard to stop.

I don't know why I started binge eating rather than drinking or something else, but I do know that a family emergency (suicide attempt) triggered my overeating.

I also noticed that men stopped paying attention to me when I was fatter - which was a relief. I find unwanted sexual attention very disturbing, or at least I did when I was 13.

That's a long time ago, though. I think whenever I experience something I can't handle, I tend to not dwell on it, because I tend to ruminate and not get anywhere. So rather than getting agitated for nothing, I treat myself to something really nice so that I can forget about the unresolved issue. Also, I think it helps me fall asleep. It's a sort of tranquilizer.

I read "secrets of a former fat girl" and it really helped shine some light on much of my overeating.

I think I'm one of those who can respond to this with a definite answer.

When I was little I was slightly chubby. From the age of about 6-12 I was a relatively normal weight and didn't have major issues with food, apart from the overwhelming urge to eat it whenever it was available as food was mostly locked up in our house.

When I was twelve I was taken from my parents and placed in a series of foster homes. I can trace my binge eating to this time in my life. I was so depressed that I'd hide in a toilet cubicle at school, sometimes for an entire day, and when I came home I'd often just sleep until well past dinner. I was given pocket money around this time too, for the first time ever, and there was a little shop just up the road that sold junk food and magazines.

I'd always spend my money on junk and crappy magazines, as there was nothing else I could feasibly spend it on, and would then lock myself in my room and just eat and read and try not to focus on what was happening to my life. It was around this time that I started seeing food as a major comfort and proceeded to gain 40 pounds.

I've been using food as comfort ever since and the scale creeps higher and higher every year. It got so bad at one point that I was binging almost every single day, and was so addicted to it that I felt literally helpless to stop. I didn't know why I was doing it, only that if I didn't I'd be left to sit in my apartment and think about all the things I didn't want to think about.

Thank goodness I'm not still locked in that vicious cycle but I have been left to deal with its legacy. I haven't had a real binge in quite some time but I can't honestly say it'll never happen again. I don't know what's around the corner. But I have learned that if I'm going to eat something to only buy enough for a single serve. If I buy more and it's just sitting there I know I'll be tempted to eat it.

I can relate to this. My sister and I both had rather traumatic upbringings and we both turned out very differently. She became someone who constantly looked to men, most often the wrong men, to give her the love, attention and affection that she craved. She also developed a serious drinking problem, and later a drug habit which saw her nearly die more than once, and her beautiful baby son to be born in withdrawal.

I'm opposite to that. I do not crave attention from men and am totally fine with not receiving any at all. Being virtually invisible to most men was one of the reasons I ensured I stayed fat for so many years. I was comfortable with that identity, but not at all comfortable in my big, slow body.

I also used food as a way to avoid focusing on any issue I didn't want to deal with. It works a charm but it's not without its price.

This is similar to how I feel. When I was younger, my brother hadn't been born yet, so I was an only child. Because of my weight, my dad made a limit to the junk food I was allowed to have (2 slices of pizza, 2 freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, 2 cinnamon rolls ect), and I would obsess over it, and eat too fast, which left me still feeling hungry and unsatisfied. When it came to my favorite foods it was like I was bottomless and could just keep eating and eating. However, on canned foods and more homemade foods I got full faster but never felt satisfied.

Once I became a teen, I started skipping my mom's dinners, staying up late and making my own dinners later at night when no one was awake to comment on how much/what I was eating. I would load my plate with deli meat sandwiches with all the trimmings, chips, cookies, snack cakes, pizza, tuna salad, hot pockets ... ect, bring them to my room and eat as I played video games, watched tv/movies, played on the internet, or talked on the phone. This was my time to relax, because there was no pressures on me, because I was the only one awake, so I liked to savor the moment (which usually resulted in me sleeping through school and flunking my classes). I still like to kind of "Save" my "fun meals" for when I have something fun to do.

My husband came from a huge, poor family, so once we got married, the first few years we went a bit overboard on eating. There was a time when we'd buy a huge bag of taco bell and eat it over 2-3 days, make homemade pizzas almost every night, load up on junk food during the day and evenings. It was pretty bad. We've just now started incorporating healthier options, but we're still not perfect. We still have a couple "cheat days" through the month, and I'm lucky if I stay below 2000 calories most days, but we're learning.

I've thought about this question and I think I may have an answer. I do have some childhood drama that may have caused my issues now. When I was born I didn't eat. My parents told me that it took a while for them to get to eat like I was supposed to. Then when I got older around 9-10 my brother began to act out and get himself into trouble. Around 12 (my brother was 14) he began to get himself into drugs.

My parents spent so much time on him trying to get him better that I was overlooked. (Not that my parents didn’t love me and spend time with me they did. They love me and I love them very much and I do not blame them one bit). My bedroom was upstairs and the stairs lead right down into the kitchen. My parents’ bedroom was on the other side of the house so naturally they did not hear me sneak and get food. I just never stopped sneaking. To this day I still do it. I want to stop badly but my loneliness and depression won’t let me.

I think it’s a combination of being ‘overlooked’ and from just liking food. I was pretty normal weight up until about 10 years old. Then I was always the fat girl and so on. Though I don’t know how my elementary was 4 floors plus a basement and I had to walk up flights of stairs every day you would think that I would stay in shape without the elevator(since there was no elevator in that building). LOL