When Suze Orman sees a cluttered house she sees financial issues.
Cause she hasnt seen my house. Or my finances.
"Experts" cant fix you if you aint broke.
Do I have emotional issues - **** yes. Are they related to my weight? sometimes.
Did they cause my weight issues? Probably not, I was fat before I knew I was fat. I grew up in a family that didnt do much media and was pretty non-mainstream and by the time I even was aware of "weight" I was overweight.
Now, it is more linked because it is one more way to self abuse, but if it isnt weight I can use something else. Like letting my house get cluttery. But never my finances.
Someone in Central Texas doesn't like corn fritters? *tsk* Kids these days.
Corn fritters...gawd my mom made the BEST corn fritters. Sigh..one of those foods I havent had in decades. And apple fritters.
OH yeah, i was fat by the time I was 10 because the only foods my mom knew how to cook really well were baked goods and desserty type stuff. So all the organic produce in the world didnt help when we had nice organic fresh picked cherry pie or apple fritters all the dang time. We ate like we lived on a farm in 1840 with manual labor and all.
MmmmmMMMMmmmm...corn fritters, apple fritters...ANY fritters..fry 'em up and pass the plate!
The world has issues. I have yet to find one person here that doesn't have emotional issues. Those that try to come across as if they have none are more displaced than the ones that admit it.
Do these issues have to do with my weight. Yes, absolutely. For me, it does. Sure, I like the fritters--possibly love them. But what is it that allowed me to think fried, cheap crap in front of me was worth more than my own health or life?
I do feel like being fat is like wearing my emotional shortcomings on the outside. So if she looked at me, would she see emotional issues? Yes. But as others have said, "overweight" is a relative term. Does 20 pounds mean you have emotional problems tied to your weight? Maybe, maybe not. 170 pounds overweight? I think it's a pretty good chance the answer is yes.
I'm not sure that even severely morbidly obese people have emotional issues that are responsible for their weight - or that it can be sorted out from the emotional issues caused by the weight.
It's a stereotype that is assumed, but I'm not sure that there's research support for it (or as I said that it can be seperated from the emotional trauma caused by being so socially unacceptably fat).
I succeeded very well in my professional life (before I became physically disabled) and in my social life, and my weight was the only part of my life, I had difficulty controlling. I think I was much more socially adjusted than I gave myself credit for, because I believed the propaganda that I "must" be mentally ill because of my weight.
I think I went into psychology (bachelor's and master's degree) to try and figure myself out. I even had a peer tell me that my weight proved that I had been sexually abused or traumatized as a child (nope). And my lack of memory for any such events only proved that I had repressed it (ohhhhkay).
The weird thing is, that I almost bought into the hype, and began thinking that there had to have been some unusual trauma in my life to account for my weight. There had to be something seriously "wrong" with me.
The thing is, if you think that emotional issues are behind weight issues - you will find evidence for it (but maybe only because it's impossible to find a living person who has no emotional issues).
I believe (it's been a while since I've read the most recent research) that the only mental illness that is more common among obese people is depression - but again did the depression cause the obesity, or did the obesity cause the depression (or rather caused the social isolation that caused the depression)?
If you have serious emotional issues, certainly address them if you can, but I think we can drive ourselves crazy looking for craziness. It becomes a self-fufilling prophecy, especially if you believe such crackpot "professionals" must be right. The issue of "repressed memories," is especially concerning, because it's been proven that many "repressed memories," especially those "recovered" with hypnosis are actually false memories implanted by the imagination of the patient and/or the therapist (who may unconsciously lead the patient to such "memories.")
Does it even matter if you identify the "emotional issue" though? Or will you resolve alot of the issues by virtue of buckling down and just getting serious about losing the weight?
IMHO, severe morbid obesity like my DB and DS and DF have is a physical symptom that there are physical AND emotional issues at hand. I would say the same if they were alcoholics, or anorexics, or substance-abusers. I don't think it is the WHOLE story, but it is, to me, a physical symptom that something needs to be addressed.
For me, as an individual, when my BMI was 38.2, it suddenly clicked that I HAD to acknowledge that my obesity was an outward expression of alot of unresolved emotional issues. And that it didn't MATTER what they were, cause I'd spent alot of years chasing that particular tail to no avail. I just acknowledged that I had issues and got busy with the weight loss.
I think the MD in question is only saying that, as a physician, if someone presents with a weight issue, it may be valuable to look to unresolved emotional issues (such as depression, or anger) in order to be of assistance. I don't get the sense that this is a judgemental thing at all. It simply is a factor to be considered from a clinical point of view.
We love to blame MDs when we are misdiagnosed (I'm overweight, NOT fat, and healthy and fit), not diagnosed (the doctor should have told me my son was obese and done something when he hit 500 lbs), OR diagnosed (How DARE you say I need to lose weight -- I think I'll sue) when it comes to weight issues! And when you think of it from a clinical point of view, MDs are trying to figure out how to help you get healthy. To not consider all the possibilities would be, from their POV, irresponsible.
I view this in a different light. I almost feel like saying to someone "You are overweight, so therefore you must have emotional issues" is just a hop, skip, and a jump of thinking away from "To lose weight, you have to deal with your issues". Which can be an overwhelming task, either if you don't know what your issues ARE or if you're not in a place to deal with them right now. Which then becomes another reason NOT to get started on the weight itself (which I think Kaplods was alluding to...the idea that one must first resolve emotional problems to be successful at resolving a weight problem). From my perspective, you can, without dealing with ANYTHING, change your behaviors in such a way to produce success. Sort of a cognitive behavioral therapy approach to weight loss....learn to cope NOW, and maybe the feelings you need to cope with will become less in time.
Also, even for emotional overeaters, the "issues" aren't the problem...it's that for those who emotionally overeat, they have poor coping mechanisms for dealing with emotions or boredom. And even then, I think that's a subset (though a relatively large one) of the overweight/obese community, not EVERY member. And advising or classifying every member of that community as an emotional overeater, I think, doesn't hold water, particularly as someone on TV with no knowledge or insight into the lives of most of the people being classified. I'd rather see personal docs probe a bit deeper (with a question as simple as "What time of day do you find you eat most/what is happening at that time"), use that answer to see if overeating is being used as a coping mechanism, then guide toward other more appropriate coping mechanisms, and I'd rather public figures (including experts on TV, etc) not make blanket statements about the mental states of entire groups of people...especially when the statements aren't really about the root cause of excess weight, which is excess eating.
When I was growing up, the statistics on overweight americans (adults and children) were much lower. It's now the majority of American adults and 20 to 30% of children who are overweight (and I don't think we're less mentally healthy today than we were 40 years ago), and the fastest growing number of overweight people are in the severely, super obese catagory. I don't think the changes have been in the way we deal with stress and emotions, I think the changes have been in our food intake and exercise output.
Many children don't go out and play anymore (sometimes because their neighborhoods aren't safe).
There are thousands of reasons that can affect weight. Knowing the factors can be helpful, but change does not require that we understand all of the factors before making changes.
I agree that faulty coping mechanisms contribute to weight gain.
I am one of those VERY SENSITIVE people. I can look at a person and see their sadness (if present) at such a deep level. I can't tell you how many times I have seen a morbidly obese person with such sadness in their eyes. Like they are screaming (i'm self destructing and I don't know what to do!).
For me seeing a morbidly obese person (not so called 20 lbs overweight I am talking about a person who has to take deeper breaths because the fat surrounding their heart and lungs is causing their lungs to be compressed. This causes me to feel the same sympathy I feel for a person that has a drug problem, or an alcohol problem, or a mental illness.
There are happy "fat" people. They say "I'm happy with my body" they embrace their weight and feel sexy. But then, since there are so many problems that come with being significantly overweight--joints, blood sugar, cholesterol, blood pressure--they definitely COULD be happier.
And then of course there is the issue--how did they get so big? What is it that causes them to continue eating beyond the signal of satiety? what else are they getting from food besides satisfaction of hunger?
It is a physiological fact that fattening foods release endorphins. That chocolate bar really does make you feel good. That cookie really is making that report seem a lot less daunting. So yes definitely coping mechanisms are at play.
