Innerestin' discussion, ladies...
Did anyone beside me see the program on obesity on Monday night (I think it was the Discovery channel)? Very interesting stuff.
In that program there was a story that was particularly compelling. It was about a man who had weighed somewhere between 1,200 and 1,400 pounds (his weight had to be estimated because there wasn't a scale large enough) and had gone to a clinic for the morbidly obese (the only one of its kind in the country) to try to save his life.
After the obligatory pictures of the naked fat guy on the specially built bed, they began talking a little about the clinic and its work. What made me sit up and take notice was that part of the clinic's therapy was to extend love and acceptance for these people. Why is this so amazing? Because I've watched for years the discrepacies (discrimination!) in how eating disorders for fat people differ from those who are thin. I had seen this type of "love therapy" (for lack of a better term) used in successful treatments for anorexics and bulemics -- some woman in Canada, I think -- in a small clinic where the treatment is based on treating the patients (usually young, very thin women) with affirmations and loving tenderness. I recall that the success rate was unusually good considering that the most profoundly ill were brought to her clinic. But NEVER, until this program Monday night, had I heard of such a program for people who are fat. Even in the bulk of the eating disorder literature -- if you're bulemic or anorexic, you're a victim. But if you're fat you're... self indulgent... lazy... undisciplined... at least many of the supposed "cures" reflect that thinking. Rarely have I seen anyone (unless they themselves had been fat) develop a program of recovery which included sincere compassion for (or even addressed the problems of) the emotional distress and self hatred of overweight people.
This is a huge piece of the puzzle, I think. Because part of what starts the self destructive (as in slow suicide) cycle (different, I think, than the I'd-rather-have-an-extra-cookie-or-two type) of overeating is guilt and shame. In today's society, we feel guilty if we're even 20 pounds overweight. And there's no appetite enhancer like guilt and shame! Common sense says that if we're feeling guilty, we would do something to change ourselves so we wouldn't have to feel those feelings. Unfortunately, guilt and shame don't necessarily go away when we eat healthy for one day. In fact, if we're looking for external approval, it can be years of strenuous diet and exercise before we get it. And for most of us, the delayed gratification of "society's" approval, as much as we'd like to have it, just doesn't give us the motivation -- or strength or whatever you want to call it -- to stay on a diet and exercise program.
So, denied approval, left in our shame, food becomes the comforter. That's how it happened for me, anyway. Food became the soother, the always available and uncritical friend. If I didn't have a date? There was always a large pizza and chocolate chip cookes to ease me through Friday night. And the more I did that, the more the shame, the more I did it to get away from the shame. I can totally understand how people can get so large -- we get bigger while our world gets smaller...until it finally is no larger than what we want to eat next and how we're going to get it -- because any other thought (about what is really going on with us) is too excrutiating to think.
So, I can understand why there is naafa...somehow we have to lose the shame associated with being fat (since it only makes the problem worse) so that we can get into a real solution. It's true that somehow this self regard has to be found within us -- but for me? I need support from others like me and a relationship w/an unconditionally loving and accepting God. There's only a slim chance that society will embrace or even feel compassion for those of us who are struggling to recover from compulsive overeating. And maybe it doesn't have to. But for those of us who have this problem, somehow we have to find a way to remember that we're all created in God's image and we have the right to help. And then we have to take responsibility for ourselves and our health...and never, never give up until we find the help we need.
JMO!
Hey Jiff! I was posting while you were. Great minds...