Most overeaters feel that they lack will power and motivation in their attempts to lose weight. They must become aware that food has symbolic meanings, most often hidden from conscious awareness. Such understanding is an important element in helping the compulsive eater come to grips with the psychological difficulties in losing weight. Consider the following alternative meanings which obese persons, and others with eating disorders, have unconsciously assigned to food:

1. Food as a substitute for love withheld or denied.

2. Food as a sustenance that fills the void of loneliness and absent but longed-for social relationships.

3. Food as a substitute for the absent childhood nurturance by family and significant others.

4. Food as part of an extended eating activity to postpone or prevent involvement in anxiety producing academic, social and professional activity. (It is used as the ultimate instrument of procrastination.)

5. Food as a reward for a job well done where meaningful reward is absent.

6. Food as consolation and solace for every kind of loss and any kind of defeat.

7. Food as a way to minimize stress.

8. Food as instant gratification when the attainment of life’s goals appears to be very far away.

9. Food as an instrument of revenge and rebellion against a parent or spouse who has applied what is perceived to be unreasonable pressure or enforced unreasonably high standards.

10. Food as a method for pushing down a range of unacceptable feelings causing the repression of either hate, anger, sexuality, and rage, as well as the fear of death and dying.

Just knowing that you eat because of anger or boredom is not enough to make changes. If this partial list of the symbolic meaning of food does not convince you of the need for understanding the hidden or deeper meanings we give to food, then consider reading the forthcoming article on the symbolic meaning of fat.

Many people who join Solutions claim that they know why they overeat. While knowing is the first step, you need to follow though and explore these reasons in a deeper way.

For example, if you develop an insight that the only reason you are eating is because you are bored, you have only taken the first step in developing an understanding of your overeating problems. First, you need to explore why you are bored, what makes you feel bored, whether the boredom is a cover-up for other feelings, and what makes you stay in a boring situation. Next, you need to understand why you choose to overeat when you feel bored. Only then can you get to the root of the problem.

Consider, then, that there is a difference between the symbolic meaning of food and the symbolic meaning of fat. In the last article I provided a partial list of the meaning of food; here follows a partial list of the symbolic meaning of fat.

1. Fat as non-verbal communication of seemingly unacceptable emotional expression, e.g., “I’m angry.” “I’m hurt.” “I hate you.” “I’m in pain.”

2. Fat as a social barrier, communicating the desire to be left alone to avoid a range of social interactions.

3. Fat as a demonstration of power and control, e.g., “I refuse to look the way you want me to look.”

4. Fat as a means of maintaining the status quo and avoiding the fear and anxiety- producing challenges of, for example, moving up the corporate ladder, applying for a better job, leaving a bad relationship and seeking new relationships, and taking risks.

5. Fat as a way of communicating that one should approach with minimal expectations, e.g., “don’t expect too much of me because I am fat and lazy as you can plainly see.”

6. Fat as a protective barrier against sexual overtures in order to avoid feelings of guilt and shame, vulnerability, and exposure. Essentially, it is a way to avoid intimacy in a culture which is certain to reject the obese.

Obesity, especially in women, has reached epidemic proportions. It is little consolation to tell a compulsive eater to “reduce your caloric intake” and “all you need is motivation and will power”. Now that so much more is known about the causes of obesity and compulsive eating disorders, it is important for you who suffer from such problems to explore new avenues, and not close yourself off to the possibility that there are hidden psychological issues that lie at the root of your eating problem. Only then will you be able to free yourself from the tyranny of compulsive eating once and for all.

Photo by Kennedy Garrett

The magnitude of obesity as a problem for women is well documented. Thirty-five percent of all American women exceed their ideal body weight by more than 20 percent – the definition of obesity – and a full 50 percent are overweight to some degree. Recent research and the experience of therapists specializing in the treatment of eating problems reveal that between 25 and 35 percent of these women were sexually abused as children and as many as 60 percent were victims of some form of sexual abuse – compared to 20 percent of the general population. Clearly, sexual abuse victims are over-represented among obese women, but is there truly a connection between the two problems? I, among others, have found that in most instances there is.

Compulsive eating frequently begins soon after sexual abuse occurs, and if women were already prone to turn to food to cope with hard-to-handle feelings, their eating problems worsen. In addition, the dates women begin their first of many, many diets often coincide with the time of their traumatic sexual experiences. And common reactions to sexual abuse – guilt, poor self-esteem, distorted body image, anxiety and a sense of powerlessness, to name a few – are virtually identical to those long associated with obesity and eating problems.

The true tragedy of this situation is that obese, over-weight and diet obsessed women who are also sexual abuse victims are almost always completely unaware of the connection. They believe that fat is the real problem that causes any other problems they might have and that losing weight is the ultimate solution which will remove all obstacles from their path, automatically remedying anything that is troublesome in their lives. They contribute more than their share to the 10 billion dollars spent each year on diet aids, 95 percent of which are ineffective. They are among the 20 million Americans who, on any given day, are desperately trying to lose weight and experience heartbreak and frustration when (like 90 percent of all men and women who successfully lose weight on diets) they gain back their weight within a year. Every well-meaning move they make, every diet failure they experience, and the social and psychological burdens they bear for being obese, add insult to injury, compounding the pain and anguish they originally encountered because of sexual abuse.

Women can free themselves of food obsessions and weight problems. These are the necessary steps:

Recognize and face your painful past experience.

Become more aware of what you eat and when, what you are feeling and why, and learn to differentiate physical hunger from emotional appetite.

Come to accept that you can live through unpleasant feelings instead of eating over them.

Develop communication, relationship and social skills.

Improve your body image.

Realize that your life is not a dress rehearsal and “get on with it” no matter what your present weight may be.

Marie, a nurse for ten years, has gone on yet another diet, and to date has lost over one hundred pounds. She looks in the mirror each morning with ambivalence. On the one hand, she admires her new body and feels proud that all her hard work has paid off. On the other hand, she has the uncomfortable feeling of having become fragile and frail, afraid that she could “break easily”.

One particular morning Marie finds herself standing in front of the refrigerator eating ice cream out of the carton. She convinces herself that it’s okay to eat the ice cream this one time because she has a busy day at work. Ice cream soothes and calms her – she hates to feel anxious and tense on the job. This eating behavior continues every day for several months however and she gains back almost thirty pounds.

Marie thinks that her problem is lack of willpower. While she’s aware that she has a problem with food she believes this is her only problem. She hears an inner voice urging her to lose weight and be thin. At the same time the inner voice argues that she can’t stick to a diet long enough to take it off and keep it off.

Today, most women with eating problems are educated enough to know that food is not the problem, but rather the symptom of the real issue. Food can be seductive, satisfying, soothing, and tempting. It is often described by women as “better than a lover”; it’s always there for me, it doesn’t leave me, it nurtures me and fills my need and I can depend on it all the time.”

Another source of conflict is the association of weight with body image. Overweight women tend to view slim women as superficial, petty, fragile, selfish, and non-caring – all very negative characteristics. Yet, being slim is their goal. This conflict produces a flurry of feelings since being thin is alternatively seen as being positive and negative, virtually assuring failure. For women, body image and sexuality are inseparable.

In Marie’s case, her mother was overweight, sexually inhibited, had very low self-esteem, did not take care of herself and constantly fed Marie with negative images about men, “Don’t let them take advantage, you have to be strong and stand up to them or they will rule you!” she would say. Marie’s parents’ relationship reinforced these messages. There was never a sign of affection between them, but rather an on-going power struggle to “win”. As a result of watching her parents battle, Marie grew up believing that winning meant being big and strong: being overweight was seen as an advantage.

In my practice, I have seen a high percentage of overweight women who have been sexually abused. Compulsive eating frequently begins after sexual abuse occurs. The genuine tragedy is that such women spend thousands of dollars trying in vain to lose weight without an awareness of the connection between sexual trauma and their eating problem. Trying to diet without dealing with the underlying issues only treats the symptoms and not the cause, thereby assuring the dieter’s failure each time.

Women can free themselves of food obsessions, weight problems and a lifetime of yo-yo dieting. As a start, answers to the following questions can provide valuable insight:

1. When did my eating problem begin?

2. What was gong on in my life at the time I started to gain weight?

3. What messages did I get about my body and my sexuality while growing up?

4. What was my mother’s relationship to my father?

5. Did I receive any negative messages about my father or about my body?

6. Did I receive disapproval for being too feminine or for not being feminine enough?

These answers may help you begin recognizing the developmental patters of your overeating, how it began, and hot to begin to change it. This is, however, only the first step. Recognizing that you have a problem and accepting that there is help available to deal with these issues, will ultimately assist you to break free from destructive eating patterns and to have a “normal” relationship with food.

Why do you overeat?

“Because there’s too much stress in my life!”

And who is responsible? You are!

According to Dr. Ed Beckham, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, you may be partly to blame. You may be adding unneeded tension to an otherwise uneventful day. Then, stressed-out at the end of your sabotaged day, you overeat and binge until you can barely move.

What is the recipe for ruining a perfectly nice day?

1. Overschedule.  This is a way to produce inordinate amounts of stress. By planning to do twice as much as can humanly be achieved in a single day, you have assured yourself of failure, with the feelings of stress, worthlessness and frustration that accompany it.

2. Worry. It really doesn’t matter what you select, so worry about anything and everything. By worrying about those things that are beyond your control, you have generously contributed to your stress.

3. Personalize.That’s right. Take every mistake or negative occurrence personally. React as if any error in judgment was aimed at you. If you are caught in a traffic jam, consider it an intentional effort to make you late. If it begins to rain while you are out shopping and you are without an umbrella, take this as an act of nature personally directed at you. By the day’s end, you will have experienced the required amount of stress to trigger your next great binge.

4. Be Inflexible. Remember that everyone must do things your way. Demand it! Insist that things must go your way. And since this is simply not possible, you have guaranteed yourself a profound sense of frustration, powerlessness and stress.

5. Demand Perfection. Demand and expect that nothing ever goes wrong. Expect an error-free world. Since an error-free day is rare, and even for the best of us things go wrong, you will find it easy to feel miserable. Even on a day in which things go well ninety percent of the time, there is still enough reason for you to feel stressed-out and frustrated.

6. Be Humorless. Treat a small negative occurrence, failure, or error, no matter how minor, as a terrible tragedy. Do not laugh off trivial infractions and mistakes, whether they are yours or others’. Be grim, unhappy, and frustrated and, by day’s end, you will be filled with great stress (stress that you have created with virtually no help from others).

Since many react to stress by overeating, a change of attitude towards the normal day’s events can dramatically affect your eating behavior.

Part of the reason why people are fat today is because of certain family “food rules.” We all know the parent whose child comes home after school and tells her she is hungry – and Mom says, “You can’t eat now. Wait until dinner or you’ll spoil your appetite!” Or the mother who has told us to clean our plate because of starving children in China.

In working with compulsive eaters, one of Virginia Porcello’s approaches is to help clients go back in time and explore the following kinds of recollections relating to food:

1. How much was served?

2. How much was eaten?

3. Did certain foods have to be eaten first?

4. Was there a reward given if you cleaned your plate?

5. Was dinner always served at the same time?

The problem is that, as we get older, the eating behavior becomes more and more ingrained, so that it is hard to change. Virginia Porcello has found that when she works with children at an early age, along with their parents, they can grow up free from compulsion and obsession with food.

But many times feeding patterns mean more than just eating. For parents it is a means to an end. A mother will shout “good” if her child eats. Food can be used to punish and reward and it can become a power struggle between parent and child. The child can become defiant and create a feeling of “false power” over the parent, thereby getting her way.

The only reason we should eat is to satisfy physical hunger. That is the key to living your life as a thin person. Unfortunately, most people eat for many reasons that have nothing to do with physical hunger. They eat for emotional comfort, when they are anxious or feel stressed, angry, lonely and bored. They eat because it’s noon, and noon time is when you are supposed to eat lunch. They eat because it tastes good. And these are the messages that are passed on to our children, who grow up with the same guilts, obsessions and compulsions as their mothers have.

While parents have a responsibility in raising their children to be healthy, upstanding individuals who can become independent and happy, the issues around food and weight can keep the child from feeling good and living a productive life with a high sense of self esteem.

Parents who put their children on diets at an early age are setting them up for a life of “yo-yo dieting”, guilt and self-hatred. There are other avenues to help children grow up free and live with a good body image, and not feel ashamed of themselves.

In her “parents” workshops, Virginia Porcello teaches mothers and fathers how to bring up children without such eating problems as anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and compulsive overeating. Parents learn to break those old family “food rules” and acquire healthier, more constructive tools to help their children grow up with a good body image, high self-esteem and free from an obsession with food and the compulsion to overeat.