Here's a map of influences. May not be complete, but wow!

http://www.shiftn.com/obesity/Full-Map.html

This is such an interesting thread. I find it fascinating how we all have such different reasons for our obesity.

In my own case, my weight problems came from binge eating, and my binge eating was a direct result of too much dieting when I was young, combined with a "food police" mom.

We ate only healthy food in my house growing up. Skim milk, fish, lots of fresh vegetables and salads. My mom never let us eat sugary cereal or junk food. I'm old enough that eating fast food really wasn't a thing. Every once in a while we would go out to a pizza parlor for dinner, but mostly I was fed fresh home cooked food. The problem came in that from the time I was really little my mom was always warning me about getting fat, telling me that I might be getting fat, and constantly advising me about what to eat and what not to eat. On Halloween, she took my candy and hid it up on a high shelf, doling it out piece by piece-- which only made me crave it more. By the time I was in second grade, I remember worrying about whether I was the fattest girl in the class. (I looked completely normal). As I got older, I went through puberty earlier than many of my peers, grew boobs, and was tall. I couldn't fit into the styles that my middle school friends were wearing because I was tall. I had an athletic build, but I was in no way fat-- I was just a lot bigger than my peers because I was taller and more mature. At that time, I got seriously into dieting. I joined WW for the first time at age 12, followed it to the letter, and dropped from 138 to 120. I was ecstatic, but I could not maintain 120 (and no wonder, I'm 5'8" with a large frame, and I'm skinny at 145) That started for me years of yo-yo dieting and severe body image issues, then bingeing and some bulimia. Because I'm older, there wasn't much awareness of these kinds of issues back then. I think if I were growing up now, someone would have the sense to realize that I was messed up and get me some therapy, but back then, nobody really understood that.

Unlike many of the people on this thread, I actually don't think I have a propensity toward obesity. Nobody in my family is overweight and I was raised to eat healthy-- I love fish, veggies, salad, fresh fruit. I have no interest in fast food and never got in the habit of eating it... I maintained a relatively normal weight until I got pregnant with my first child. That tipped me over into the obese range, and after that, I sort of gave up... I kept binge eating, but I also developed the habit of grazing at home. Instead of yo-yoing up and down, I just kept going up, up, up.

In a nutshell, I think that something in my own psyche, plus a parenting style that put me at risk was what created my eating disorder. I think probably if I had gotten therapy in my teens or early twenties, when I still maintained a normal weight I could have avoided eventually becoming morbidly obese.

I blame myself for letting the problem go on and on rather than reach out for help once I was on my own. With my own children, I was very careful never to comment on their body sizes or shapes, not to food restrict them or food police them, and I'm very happy that my two daughters have grown up with normal body images and no eating disorders.

What is so weird about obesity is that if your parents feed you too much, it can cause a propensity toward obesity, and if your parents restrict your food, it can also cause a propensity toward obesity. Also, in terms of weight loss strategies, I think that is why we all need to find our own paths to weight loss-- what works for some people doesn't work for others.

What's more, I definitely think that genetics and heredity plays a role. I managed to maintain a normal weight for a long time in spite of eating stuff like entire boxes of double stuff oreos in one sitting, whereas, I see that other people can become morbidly obese just eating a little too much every day. My weight problems definitely originated in my head, not in my body.

I believe there are lots of reasons, but one that hit home for me was eating out of habit.
I always ate in the movie theater or while watching television.
I wasn't hungry. It was just conditioned in me to do this.
As soon as I realized it. I stopped and I started loosing some weight.

Binge eating comes from eating too few calories. Period.

I starved myself for a year and ended up binge eating /all/ the time. Three months of eating at a normal calorie range again (2,000+) I stopped all binge eating. The key is to reduce calories by a very small amount and do moderate but not excessive exercise)

I don't think many people realize that binge eating is actually a symptom of restriction. It's a very difficult concept to understand and I didn't understand it myself until very very recently. I'd been told that restriction was causing binging many times but it made NO SENSE to me at all. I didn't understand how it was possible someone was restricting while eating everything that wasn't nailed down. But it is possible when your mind is saying "stop eating this, no don't pick up that donut, I'm gonna pay for this tomorrow on the scale, I'm such a horrible person, I can't believe I'm eating all this, I hope nobody sees me, oh well I might as well finish everything here so that tomorrow I can start fresh, I promise myself I'll never eat like this again, I'm such a slob, I deserve to be fat." When you have that dialogue in your head you're not doing yourself any favors, this is the dialogue that lights the fire to binge. It's a restrictive mentality which leads to binging.

Childhood trauma and trauma I dealt with as an older teenager that really broke my soul for a while. I was able to pinpoint that through counseling when I was dealing with my eating disorders. It is no longer an excuse, it was an answer. A few years ago I found the solution and lost the weight. The weight piled back on in 2013 due to lack of exercise then a wonderful, healthy pregnancy! However I amnow healthily losing the weight and exercising.

I have no idea. I just love junk and can not stop until it's gone. I've been hoping that maybe it's emotional eating, or there was some big reason... I just think I'm greedy, lol.

I binge because the cravings I get are so bad I can't resist them. I identify with Kathryn Hansen in her book 'Brain Over Binge' when she explains that her cravings come from periods of severe food restriction earlier in her life, which is what I did too, plus a strong habit formed in the brain. I know that if I can resist giving in to my cravings for just a couple of weeks then they will fade and I can be binge free. I have done this on about four occasions in the past for months on end, with very successful results. But I started eating my trigger foods again and now my cravings are back with a vengeance. I know that I need to just sit and resist them each evening when they strike, but at present I'm finding that just too hard. But for me it's the only way. Which is why I've joined this Forum, for support.

I spent quite a few years thinking there was something wrong with me. Why couldn't I control myself ? Everything pointed to the "fact" that I had no will power....that I was weak....lacking in moderation and broken. Then one day, I tried the Carbohydrate Addicts Diet. At first I couldn't believe it. What happened to the nightly after dinner cravings ? Why was I suddenly able to control my eating ? Slowly, I started to understand that although there were psychological components at play, most of the problem was physiological....I mean there were certain behaviors that had become hard wired ...and needed to change, but I wasn so "broken" anymore.

I believe food addiction is linked to childhood trauma which is any childhood where a child did not receive the love needed because parent(s) were not able to love or not available. I do not speak for everyone but for myself and for many I know. Personally my father was an alchoholic and thus not available to father in the way he should have so the love was not there and he was abusive to my sibling, one sibling viewing abuse is abuse itself. In my personal life every very overweight person I have known well enough to know anything of their lives had parent(s) who could not love. Some of my friends I would never say this to but it was so clear that their parent(s) was so wrapped up in themselves they just were not available to them. I believe these wounds caused by childhood resulted in ptsd for myself and thus I am dealing with my addiction day by day. I can only speak for my experiences though.
I do have great therapist who happens to be a psychiatrist and I am finding this work really helpful and healing.

I had wonderful parents and a great childhood. It wasn't without challenges but my parents were very loving. Then again I don't consider myself an addict of any sort.

I think it has a lot to do with culture. We usually have too much food everywhere, we socialize while eating, we shower our guests with delicious meals and what is a celebration without a feast? It's only natural that we link eating with happiness! Of course a lot of people eat when they're stressed and the issue can be much much deeper sometimes, but I believe it can also only get down to (bad) habits.

I don't like when people assume that I'm fat because I'm "solving my problems with food".

I think there are just too many contributing causes, and too many plausible, but untestable theories to answer the question with any degree of accuracy.

I suspected deep-seated social and psychological problems most of my life, because that's where I was taught/led to look - because that was a common theory of health care professionals of the time (of course "back then" homosexuality and schizophrenia were both thought to be caused by the amount and quality of maternal attention and affection).

Currently I suspect a genetic component because I was adopted an am the only person in my adoptive family to have ever been overweight, much less morbidly obese as a child (as I was) or before middle-age, for that matter. At my heighest weight, I outweighed the next heaviest person in my family by about 125 lbs.

I know very little about my biological family, so I'm just guessing, but I don't think it really matters why or how I got fat. Theories can help design treatments, but I think that's actually part of the problem.

When I assumed a psychological cause, I looked for psychological solutions. When they didn't work, I saw it as an indication of how mentally screwed up I had to be, rather than as an indication that there might be physiological issues.

I think overeating has too many contributing causes for cause-identification to be very practical or effective. Also, obesity becomes self-perpetuating and multi-causal. You may begin overeating for one reason, but staying fat can involve many others. I don't think anyone is fat for only one reason, and even stress-induced obesity causes physiological changes that reinforce the obesity, even when the stress is no longer present.

Even stress-induced eating may be genetic. Some people overeat when stresses, others lose their appetite. Genetics, family history, cultural norms... and a gazillion other factors may determine how your appetite responds to stress...

I do think obesity tends to be more physiological than psychological, which is sadly a somewhat radical view. It's more common to assume that obesity HAS to be a matter of mental instability - lazy, crazy, or stupid.... To the point that if you DO believe in physiological factors, you're accused of being in denial or shirking personal responsibility.

Great thread! So, after reading what everyone says, it confirms what I think. There are many things that can be attributed to overeating. I am not sure I know all of the reasons for me. Then again, I am not sure I know the real reason. I was abused for many years. That may well have caused me to want to self comfort in the only way I knew how. And it may have been one of the few ways I felt control over how I felt. I also ate to calm the pain. Gratification. But I do not think that's the only reason. I eat very quickly. And I am voracious. Much like what we think of the classic alcoholic with alcohol. Its almost like it's never enough.

My eating was somewhat controlled by my abusive mother when I was young. So it may have exacerbated the problem. And still there could be more reasons. I am in maintenance now. But my entire life has been up and down in weight. I have lost more than a hundred pounds from my heaviest. But I have lost perhaps three times that amount with yoyoing over the years. Up and down. The happiest times were when I was heavy. Creating amazing baked goods. Creating with food and then eating it. Serving it. Sheer bliss. But I was quite heavy. I think there may be another reason why I eat as I do. Maybe in a past life I was starved;):dizzy:

Overating is sometimes a big problem for me mainly when I have lots of work to be done. I am a full time translator in order to earn money for my medical studies and I frequently translate at night and under pressure. I eat a lot, mainly sweets, such as cookies, honey, chocolate and other similar stuff. So probably I eat too much when I am in stress, which is no good but I really cannot help it sometimes.

I think my overeating stems from a few things. I grew up in a poorer family and eating out became a luxury. I feel like now in my adult life I want to go out and eat pretty much everything because I can afford to more often. The feelings I get from over eating also attribute to my problems. To me food equaled happiness and was a quick fix for problems I had. When I was eating the foods I loved, I could escape the bad feelings I felt towards my self and my weight. Sometimes I even felt like I couldn't have a good time with friends without eating something unhealthy.

Now I'm realizing that eating doesn't equal happiness and food can't solve any problems long term. I have to face my problems without food. Sadly as they say, habits die hard. I still struggle not to overeat and fixate on food.

I don't know where my overeating comes from! :?: My mom cooked very nutritious meals for us, we drank low fat milk before it was cool :devil: very seldom had dessert and even then it was Jello, had soda only on special occasions. Then again I grew up without a dad..issues there. My super skinny sister never had a weight problem til later in life, However she is a recovering/battling alcoholic. Which I don't have a problem with, I could give up alcohol this second and not care but to swear off cookies for life?? NOOOO :devil:

tldr; no idea :D

I'm extremely blessed when it comes to my family. They've always been loving and supportive. But along with that comes family celebrations (birthdays, holidays, etc) that were and still are always filled with tons of food. Growing up with that I associated food with happiness and love. So I've always been an emotional eater. If I'm sad or upset I eat. The taste of food cheers me up and I feel happier. My Dad once called it instant gratification and he was right. At least in my case. It was the worst after my Husband passed away. I spent the next 3 years eating mostly candy or sugary foods. Hence my ballooning to 400 lbs. Now that I've realized why I eat like that I'm in much better control of what types of food I eat and eating healthier.

This is an interesting blog post about emotional eating that pretty much sums up how I feel about it. http://www.thegreatfitnessexperiment...ou-should.html

There is nothing wrong with emotional eating, it gets a bad rap. Seeking comfort in food is a very natural and human thing to do. When we do it we intend to take care of ourselves in the only way we know how to. We can't continue to beat ourselves up for something we are naturally inclined to do. That said, eating for comfort can only comfort us but so much. It shouldn't be our only tool for getting through uncomfortable emotions, but it's easy to fall into the trap of emotional eating and not being able to find our way out of it. That's because it becomes a physiological habit that's hard to break.

I'm sorry for your loss.

I have three reason why I over eat. Family, growing up food was always a huge part of our family get togethers and still is. Family bbqs and christmas diners and even in my home We sit and talk about our day around the diner table . Its when we all spend time together . Boredom, I have been a stay at home mom for 5 years now and sometimes doing the dishes isn't that exciting haha. I find myself grabbing snacks and munching and then look down and go why I'm eating this? Finally emotional eating . I have had the days where clothes don't fit or just having a bad day and you say well I'm already fat what's a pint of ice cream going to hurt .

Hi. I am SO sorry to read that your husband passed away. I think its understandable to have turned during that time to foods that comfort.

I clean my plate. I eat mindlessly. I eat emotionally, which I have even done when I was younger and anorexic (I would binge or emotionally eat and then go back to restricting). I eat because it tastes good. I feel like I have an unconscious fear sometimes of not getting more, or having my fill and so I eat more than normal people. Not to mention, I cook for others, so I end up eating that without thinking about it.

If something is stressing me out then I get this, "I don't care how fattening it is, I'm eating it anyway," attitude. I also eat more when there is a lot of food available, whether it be a Thanksgiving spread or lunch at a restaurant or if someone has come home with fast food dinner after I've already eaten. I think I eat when I'm bored too. There have been days where I've undereaten because I was so preoccupied with other things. I don't think my weight gain is from the times I overeat, but just from a lifetime of eating bad foods. There are days when I feel like I've eaten too much but will weigh less on the scale the next morning.

I'm Just like you BreighRenee.... I was forced to clean my plate, I feel like this is what lead me down the path. I also have portion control problems and boredom - hugries. But I'm workin on changing all that!

I think mine comes simply from the LOVE OF FOOD and that i do not feel full as quickly as the average person.

I can simply eat tremendous amounts of food. :(

That's totally me as well. I have an enormous capacity to overeat and don't feel physically uncomfortable unless I REALLY overdo it.

F.

My sister and I both have talked about this in the past. We are both overweight and eat our emotions.

I think part of it comes from growing up poor with a huge family. Food was used as a huge reward, luxury, celebration. Once a month we would get a big delicious meal and with so many people leftovers would disappear quickly. So it was almost like eat as much as you could now or it would be gone.

I seem not to have realized that I am now an adult and can buy whatever I want whenever I want to. If I want to eat that delicious meal every week I could so I don't need to stuff myself with it like Ill never get it again.

I also think during my teen years I was very depressed. I was bipolar and didn't know it and food was something that I could not only control but something I could get comfort from. So I would eat my emotions. That food would trigger the same feelings of happiness and celebration.

I think it all became a habit that is hard to break now. I get stressed and I turn to food and stuff myself senseless.

I've been doing some work lately with thinking about this as part of reading a book called "Shrink Yourself". I know that my binge eating comes from complex issues starting with the emotional abuse that I suffered as a child (and still suffer, to a degree, though I have learned to set the boundaries with my parents). Both my parents are mentally ill (though not diagnosed) - my father has a narcissistic personality and my mom has co-dependency and enmeshment issues.

Exploring reasons why I binge eat, I know that they come from feelings of having been powerless in the face of my parents' severe emotional abuse, their manipulation and control and their expectations that I take care of them rather than they take care of me (as it should have been when I was a child). I also know that my binge eating was my way of rebelling against my parents' control and abuse. I was never allowed to properly explore my independence and autonomy when I was growing up so my only way of rebelling was through food (which is ironic, since the whole idea of binge eating is that you feel out of control).

I'm learning that I have to work on those issues to help me overcome my binge eating.

Djuna

Djunamod it sounds like you have some real insight into what drove you to binge. And I think that the frantic nature of binging causes us to think that the process denotes lack of self control. I think that's wrong - on the contrary binging provides a purpose for those of us who have done it for years. My actions (binging) are not those of someone who is weak, powerless or cout of control. They are a desperate attempt to nurture ourselves in tr only way we know how. Food is safe, it doesn't say no, it doesn't talk back. As most of the time it works brilliantly to make us feel calmer. That's why we continue doing it for decades in some cases.

The sugar and fat soothes me and all that is currently wrong in my life.

Same here, I'm STILL trying to learn portion control almost a year later

Stress is definitely where it stems, for me. My family has always been "big eaters" (eating too much), and we never ate healthy. As I try to change my habits and better myself, I've found that I love eating healthy. It tastes great. But I'm so addicted to sugar, and when I get really stressed and overwhelmed, I go to sugary, fatty food.

This actually just happened yesterday. We're a one car family, and I found out our one car is not safe to drive (except to the mechanic's shop), part of the plaster is coming away from the ceiling in our living room, and my son is coming up on two and just...being in the terrible twos. I ended up binging. I only had my phone, and I tried to call some people to talk it out, but no one was around. Food was, and I made the wrong choice.

Changing my reactions, thought processes, and self care when it comes to stress is the hardest mental obstacle for me to get over.

Wannabeskinny, Thank you for the link! It really helped me work some things through in my mind. I bookmarked it so I can read it again whenever I need to.

Thank you too Flower123!

I'm so sorry I didn't see your posts earlier. :hug: