We talked in the introductory article about the ability of women of any size to enjoy physical exercise and improve health through healthy eating and emotional positivity.
No size hate here! Our goal is to encourage women of large sizes to get a better perspective on their health without focusing on weight loss in big numbers or aiming to be tiny.
The fact is that many large women have been that way for decades and some will remain large for life. But large doesn't have to mean fat, unfit and miserable. There are exercises for people of all sizes and eating well should be a goal for everyone.
The first thing a woman who is overeating needs to do is look into why she overeats in the first place. While some medical conditions (and medications) can and do cause weight gain, the vast majority of heavy women are this way because of an unhealthy relationship with food, as well as a lack of exercise.
We all know that overeating makes us fat. That’s the easy part. The tough part is asking ourselves -- why do we overeat?
Why are we seeking comfort through excessive eating? Are we trying to hide our femininity by losing our shape? Is there something psychological going on?
Are we actually addicted to food, in the physical sense - obsessing over sugars, carbs, salts and fat and incessantly wondering what our next meal will be?
Why don’t we enjoy food for its taste, nutritional and preventative properties instead of using food to fill an emotional void when there are healthier ways to do that?
These are some really hard questions that require a lot of courage to answer. But if we can get to the root of WHY we eat so much, we can remove that cause and become healthier, happier human beings.
Therapy, either group or individual, can really help. Overeaters Anonymous is a judge-free zone of like-minded people sharing stories than really hit home. Learn from these groups and seek help and support from them.
Talking to a therapist, or even a good friend, about the reasons for consuming too much food can help to make the changes we need.
If we don't delve into why we overeat, we may never stop. We need to identify and understand the triggers in our environment that cause overeating and eliminate these stress factors in order to be able to eat for health and nutrition as well as enjoyment, without obsessing over food.
We must stop the self-hate that comes with overeating, breaking self-promises or binging. Then we need to become accountable for our own actions.
Nobody wants to feel uncomfortable in their own skin, whether physically or emotionally. There are ways to fix this and we can do it.
Former FDA Commissioner David Kessler, MD, researched why overeating can happen, having found himself unable to put certain foods down and seeing his weight yo-yo for years. He found that foods loaded in sugar, fat and salt had a kind of high-reward result, causing people to want to continue feeling pleasure.
Calling it “conditioned hyper-eating”, Kessler found that these pleasurable foods release endorphins and dopamine, feel-good hormones that lead us to want more.
And like any addiction, the first highs from pleasurable foods are hard to recreate so we chase that dragon again, with more food containing even more sugars, fats and salt, looking to maintain the kind of pleasure that these foods give us.
Before we know it, Kessler said, we are overeating on a daily basis to maintain feeling good, even if emotionally and physically, it can really bring us down.
Kessler suggested that overeaters take back control of their habits and that the food industry take stock of its advertising and the kind of ingredients they use. Exercise is also encouraged.
Of course there are other reasons that are less physical and more environmental in terms of compulsive overeating. Environmental factors include family influences, where we live (geography) and cultural norms.
For many women, overeating begins in childhood where food was seen as a show of love and “clearing your plate” was expected.
A study on parental influence (Birch and Davison) explored the eating habits of parents and how they fed their children. While acknowledging genetic factors, they found that “parents' own eating behaviors and their parenting practices influence the development of children's eating behaviors, mediating familial patterns of overweight. In particular, parents who are overweight, who have problems controlling their own food intake, or who are concerned about their children's risk for overweight may adopt controlling child-feeding practices in an attempt to prevent overweight in their children.”
In trying to control their childrens’ eating habits, they may inadvertently encourage overeating. The study goes on to suggest that parents who learn better food habits themselves can pass on these habits to their children. Family habits, stress factors, eating out, eating patterns and activity levels influence a child’s weight.
So overeating has both physical and environmental (including emotional) roots. When we sort through our own reasons for overeating and learn how to cope with triggers, we can begin to eat healthfully. When we do this, enough excess weight can be lost in order for us to live a far better life and stop the negative internal chatter than happens when we aren’t happy in our own skin.
Next time we’ll talk about diet, exercise and dressing for your larger size. You may not be slender, but you can look positively amazing anyway. It’s all in your style and attitude!
Sources:
WebMD.com. Mental Health Center. Eating Disorders. Binge Eating Disorder Help Center. Compulsive Overeating and How to Stop It. Web. Retrieved May 5th, 1014.
http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/eating-disorders/binge-eating-disorde...
NCBI.gov. PubMed.gov. Family environmental factors influencing the developing behavioral controls of food intake and childhood overweight. Birch LL1, Davison KK. Abstract. Web. Retreived May 6, 2014.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11494642
Reviewed May 7, 2014
by Michele Blacksberg RN
Edited by Jody Smith