When did your food addiction start?
 

I love the show Ruby on the style network and the last episode has gotten me to really think about my own addiction to food, I am not addicted I am admittedly obsessed! I love to shop for, meal plan for and cook food.... I know my started when I was a kid(6 or so ) left alone all the time by my parents... I mean all the time, no one cooked cleaned or much of anything and I found great comfort in the company of food....now I really am working on help for this,( unfortunately on my own as ins. will not pay for any type of help), but I really believe what the councerlor in the show said that this has to be taken care of before any success can be reached in our wt. loss endevors?

Sadly I don't get the style network because I don't pay for cable :). However, to answer your question, I've had a food addiction my whole life. It's something that I get from my parents-both of whom are very overweight. Like my Dad is over 300lbs and my mom over 200 (and like 5'2"). They kind of passed along the unhealthy eating habits. Monkey see, monkey do ya know? My Dad's family-there's a lot of obesity on that side. We have addictive personalities. As in, acoholics (great uncle who died from alcoholism), drug addicts, smokers, etc. We're all addicted to something or another.

Having seen my families food struggles it's something I'm really paranoid about. I'll binge for a couple of weeks then freak out that I'm gaining weight again and be super strict...then I start all over. It's usually when I'm sad that I just give up on the diet.

My Dad joined this diet program for a while (before he lost his job bc the company went bankrupt and he lost his insurance). It was this thing where he couldn't eat solid food and just drank shakes. He had to go to meetings every week with his doctor and they'd talk about his progress. And he had group meetings with a counselor and other people on the diet. And they'd all talk about how to overcome or control their food addiction.

I agree it's something that should be addressed but like any addiction it's a hard thing to kick-especially because food isn't something you can avoid like cigarettes. You have to eat! Maybe you could just join a weight watchers? Or some diet group like that where you could learn how to change your relationship with food? I don't know. I haven't done so because of money issues so I get it if you can't join these diet groups. But that's the only advicew I can give :).

when I had a miscarriage after my 2nd child and couldn't numb myself with alcohol or drugs because of the two that needed me sober and functioning...

This is not an easy thing to put one's finger on.

But my mind goes back to my earliest years as a latch-key child. From the time I got home from school until my parents came home, that was my time to eat. I remember the activity being secretive, and my having to stand on things to reach cupboards & then try to conceal afterward that I'd been into something.

I also know that in my immediate family, food was highly valued & coveted, hidden away so others could not to get at it. There was a lot of espionage & counter-espionage & boundary disputes invoved in tracking down a snack.

Also, at some point I withdrew & became a reader, who stayed inside alone with a book, rather than going outside & playing. And I lost interest in horseback riding & swimming, which had been two of my best-loved physical activities. The more sedentary lifestyle didn't agree with me.

I think middle school, about 6th grade. I remember after school snacks were always pizza bites or something equally healthful. After school snack then homework and dinner. I like to blame school :P

I posted about this recently.

I can trace my issues with food back to being a latchkey kid starting in the fifth grade. My little brother (four years younger) and I had to go right home after school. We weren't allowed to leave the house (not even the yard). We weren't allowed to have friends inside (this was during the summertime too!).

There was nothing to do but read, watch TV and eat. I ate because I was bored and it was something good/pleasurable to do. I used to do stuff like roll bread into little balls and sprinkle it with salt. Or I would spread sugar on a piece of bread and eat it. I'd eat a spoonful of brown sugar out of the box, or a spoonful of Nestle's Quik out of the container.

When I started to lose weight this time, I really looked at when and why I ate. I discovered that I ate a LOT between 1-5 every day. I would get yogurt pretzels or M&Ms out of the machine, I would go to the bakery downstairs for buy 1 get 1 free pastries. I would drink mochas or caramel macchiatos. Nibble nibble nibble all afternoon. Because for me - afternoons = boring + snacking.

I had no big problems any other time - I hardly ever felt a need to eat after dinner, for example. I didn't really keep big bags of cookies or anything in the house, it was just this crazy afternoon snacking!

Now, I plan two healthy snacks in the afternoon (a piece of fruit at 3 and a piece of string cheese at 5). I also drink a lot of herbal tea and often sweeten it with splenda. So, I've gone from eating, oh, I don't know, 1000 calories every afternoon to eating 200 calories every afternoon. This strategy, coupled with an overall plan for healthy eating has been very successful! It was really important for me to understand the why, then I was able to make a plan.

I've always liked to eat. I've always loved food. I've always had a big appetite.

However, food didn't become an addiction and a source of comfort to me until I was on my own (college and beyond). It probably got worse (obvious) after college because my exercise level reduced greatly after graduating. I just got bigger and bigger. I became lonely and pretty soon the only thing that made me happy was food.

Not her fault, but my mom didn't have custody of us for a while when we were little, and my last foster-home literally starved us. I used to pick food out of the garbage cans at school, and beg other kids for their un-eaten veggies.

When we finally got to live with our great-grandmother, we were both under-weight. Our Mammaw (G-gma) let us eat whatever we wanted, and fed us up on cookies and dessert, so I gained almost 30 lbs in a year. At this point, she felt that maybe she had done her job too well, and started restricting my eating. I felt like I was going to be starved again, and starting sneaking and hoarding food. I haven't been at a proper BMI since!

It turned out that I have a health issue that requires me to have a small snack in the wee hours, but of course no one knew that. I felt hungry all the time, and became obsessed with food, because it never seemed like I had enough. Now, without massive amounts of food in the house, I guess I revert back to that old fear. If my bf gets less hours at work that week, or they announce a cut back in federal spending (I am on SSI and Foodstamps) I almost RUN to my fridge in fear!

I understand food obsession, and have never found a way to get past it, though I did pretty well a few years ago when I was homeless, and ended up losing almost 80 lbs. because I found myself learning that it was okay to feel a little hungry sometimes. Wish I could remember what that felt like, and get back there somehow...

Food became my emotional companion when I was about six. That year, my mother became very ill due to her out of control Diabetes and almost died... My father was doing his best to take care of my sister and I, and though he could hold down the fort financially; maintaining our emotional needs and the turmoil it placed our lives in was another. Because my prepared most of our dishes our diets suffered as we began to eat out most of the week, and of course a six and ten year old would love those infamous yellow arches representing McDonald's. It became my favorite! It seemed that all the problems would go away with each bite. As I reflect back on it now, I find it so amusing that in one picture I am this cute little girl of normal weight. In the next perhaps taken four to five months later, I am pretty much about to bust out of one my collard shirts (STILL CUTE THOUGH!!!)... So thats were it begins for me... Chomping away as a form of coping... Eating the pain, the joy, the sadness, and whatever else could or would come tumbling into my life. Thank God for a site like this. I feel better just getting those words out! Whew!!!!!!!!!!

i was an early bloomer and from the time i was about ten or eleven - i had mens attention. at first i didn't understand it, then i really liked it... then i was assualted and i didn't like it anymore! at first, i starved myself - if i saw the scale hit 100 lbs it was time to stop eating completely and ride my bike everywhere. i don't know whether or not to call what i was doing anorexia - as i was never treated. basically my parents intervened and i started eating again.
and i kept on eating! fat Liz = invisible Liz. And I liked that. A LOT. It became a sort of filter for me- if a guy liked me it was because of me, not because of my body. Keep in mind- this all happened by the time I was 16.
As I went through all that trouble- I also started smoking pot. Which as you know comes with munchies... and that is where i packed on the majority of my weight. All within about a year and a half I went from a "chubby" girl to an obese one.
Food gave me comfort that no one else could, with depression and drug addiction and adolescence ... i was going through a lot.
Since then- food is a reward, a punishment, a comfort, a friend...

*smiles* we share a name, and a problem, lol.

4th grade for me. I went to a super strict Catholic school (aren't they all super strict) and that is when all my struggles started happening. My teacher killed all of my self esteem, shot me down every chance she got. And thus my emtional eating began. She told me I'd never amount to anything, and I believed her.

OH!! I saw her again after I left Catholic school for public school. I told her I made it into some advance classes. And she yet again shot me down. After that, I pretty much stopped caring about a lot of things.

Wow, what an awful teacher, Shopaholic!

I watched that episode of Ruby and while I don't fully subscribe to the 12-step program, I have to say that by their definitions I am likely a "food addict".

My earliest memories of overeating are when we'd go to my dad's house for the weekend (parents were divorced), and they never had anything for us to do. I'd sit around and wait for the next meal. Not because I was hungry, but because it was an event. My step-mom freely gave Little Debbie snacks to our younger step-siblings, but not to us. So I learned to sneak them.

I recall being pretty young, under 11, and my brother pointing out that I mindlessly polished off the majority of a bag of potato chips while watching TV. I also recall when my sister was about 4 and I was about 8, it was common practice that when we got donuts, I got half of hers (so I had 1½ and she had ½), because I was twice her age and she couldn't eat all that.

for me it had to be about 2nd grade.... i was always big or bigger than my class mates and i think this is the grade where everything went to pot. alot of snacking. but i was active road bike all over town when it was safe played until our moms yelled from the porch..kids in school are mean and i believed every word they said right down to the ......... my parents are big but extremely active.. lookin at my mom she is a junk food tator chipper dad is just big..

I had a chaotic childhood which I think caused it but I think I always loved food. My family tells me that even as a young child I would eat and eat, huge portions, nonstop, any kind of foods, beets straight from the jar and so on. I luckily have forgotten many things about my childhood but I do have a distinct and clear memory of around 4th or 5th grade when I made 4 giant blueberry muffins, I remember eating one, and then my mother came in and started screaming at me about something. I then remember feeling very anxious and looking down and all of the muffins were gone. I didn't even remember eating them but I remember looking around thinking 'where did they go?' and then finally realizing I had ate them all to numb those feelings. To this day I can't let that go, I want food when I'm celebrating, when I'm sad, when I'm mad, highly emotional situations = need food to comfort.

If you guys haven't read Fat Girl: A True Story by Judith Moore, I highly recommend it. I could relate to so much in her story.

That's me too.

From my post in another thread:

When I was young, I ate because I was emotionally neglected - took a therapist to help me figure that out; before, I had only thought of neglect as a physical thing. i couldn't get anyone to spend time with me but I could get spare change to hit the corner store and buy chips and candy. As I grew older, I hid in the food; I ate (and sadly still do) when I was bored, scared, unhappy, happy (rare occurence), threatened, lonely, etc. Later, I started hiding in the fat too. If nobody likes me, hires me, wants to date me, it must be because I'm fat. Fat is my shelter because if I lose the weight, I'll have to face the real reasons for all the other crappy parts of my life. I'm sure fear is a big reason and so is ANGER, lots of anger, and God only knows what other reasons lay in wait for me.

As for when it started, my mother died when I was 10 so I would guess two years before that, around 8. I have a picture of me where I was really skinny (age unknown); my next picture is from around 3rd grade or so and I can see the weight had started to increase.

My addiction started when I had my first break up
 

The very first serious relationship I had the guy cheated on me and then I begged HIM not to leave me and continued to have intercourse with him and two weeks later he dumped me. When that happened to me I didn't know how to cope. I have always had a love for chocolate and I ran to chocolate. My parents use to give me chocolate cookies and cakes when I was a small child as rewards and bribes to get me to watch my younger siblings and that's where I became addicted to the taste of chocolate.

Anyway back to the story. So the guy dumbs me and I go to the grocery store and buy a box of Betty Crocker brownies mix. I baked them and ate the ENTIRE 13X9 pan of them in one night. Eating them felt like comfort. Next thing I know I'm at the store again and I bought another box. That's when my binging begins. I gained 30lbs very fast. Then about 6 months later I met my husband. He was divorced and financially in ruins. We were poor but in love. We depended on our one source of entertainment we could afford which was food. We would go through recipe cards on the weekends and make up fabulous calorie high meals. We did this for a few years. and I shot up from 150lbs to 211. I had been 120lbs when that guy dumped me and 150lb when I met my husband.

I got pregnant 5 years into my marriage and put on another 33lbs. I became a stay at home mom to my daughter and deep depression hit along with problems with my mother and I have put on another 70lbs in 8 years. My husband only weighs 220lbs. He has a much better metabolism that I do.

So my addiction first started after getting dumped and having no coping skills. I've used food to cope ever since. As soon as I can find healthy coping skills I won't be overweight anymore. It's not even about the food for me it's about learning how to cope in a healthy way with tough times and life itself.

My goodness we all have survived so much!!!! Thank you all for the honesty and companionship in this forum!!! God Bless you all.....

I remember the first time I used food as comfort. I was maybe 11. My family and I were at our camp for the weekend, and my best friend came along. My mom, friend and I were fishing on the pier, and although I have no idea what was said or what happened, somehow my feelings got hurt and I stormed off back to the camp. They stayed on the pier fishing and I was even more hurt that they did not come after me. I grabbed a box of Chips Ahoy, sat down on the floor and ate the whole box, sobbing away. I remember thinking "this will show them", like I was really indignant about my eating the cookies. Makes no sense, but I felt like I was getting back at them somehow. When I finished eating them, I put the "spare" box in their place (mom always bought 2 of everything) and no one was the wiser.

About this same time I became a latch key child (noticing a theme here), and my mom would buy huge boxes of snack food like corn dogs and hot pockets from Sam's. I would come home and eat 2 of everything, then eat a full dinner later when mom cooked. There were so many of the snacks from buying in bulk that no one noticed how many I was eating. I also remember making "dessert" of a piece of bread with peanut butter, powdered sugar and chocolate chips on it (!!!)

Amazingly I was not obese, maybe a little thick, but not fat. I did not start packing on the pounds until about halfway through high school when I stopped riding horses (also seems to be a theme around here!)

Based on what I am reading, if I ever have kids I will do whatever it takes to make sure they are not latch key kids! And encourage them to be involved in a sport they love and stick with it!