Help me understand obesity.

[Raven]

There has been a show on cable today about a clinic called Brookhaven which treats the morbidly obese. I've been watching some of it and I can't understand why some residents of this facility cheat and have fast food snuck in. There are people with terrible health problems who cannot even leave their beds.

I know that there must be more to this problem than I am grasping and I can understand that if you are addicted to eating it must be like being addicted to breathing...you have to do both to live. I'd appreciate your thoughts on this.

[bigwillq]

1. I think that's what it is.

They are addicted to food and will do whatever means possible to get the food they crave. Like a drug addict would do to get drugs. It's sad. I wish those people the best of luck and that they can get the help they need for their problems.

[AllegroRondo]

37. Read "Dont Eat This Book" by Morgan Spurlock

the same guy who did the movie "Super Size Me"

fast food can be incredibly addicting. After a while, your body NEEDS the fat, sugar, and caffeine rush from eating there. There are even chemicals in cheese that act on your brain in the same way as opiates. Its not incredibly easy to cut it off all at once.

[HughBeaumont]

43. Breaking away from it is incredibly hard.

Although I stopped eating McDonalds cold turkey, it took me a while to shake Wendys for good and Burger King to the point of rare moderation. Most of the ingredients in your average fast food burger contain some form of addicting substance which your body will come to rely on after a while if you eat enough of it, as Mr Spurlock proved in his movie.

[tbyg52]

53. As was mentioned,

one of the problems is that you *do* have to eat--you can't just stop cold turkey, you have to eat the right things and not too much of them.

The only time I ever lost a significant amount of weight was when I, in essence, pretended food didn't exist--three Instant Breakfasts a day. Kept it off through high school (didn't feel particularly well, but I looked good), and then decided I was going to eat whatever I darn well pleased.

[Sequoia]

54. I try to cut down to once a week.

But my 11 year old doesn't like those places, especially because of "SuperSize Me".

[Pied Piper]

55. I used to sometimes eat at Burger King

There is one just down the block from where I work, so I would sometimes go there for lunch. I would eat lunch at about 1:30, and by the time I got home, I was feeling a bit week and had to lie down. Once I made the connection, I realized that while a Whopper tastes great, there's no "food" there. My body was starving just a few hours later. I haven't set foot in that place in about 5 years - the same for Wendy's. Nowadays I prefer Subway or Au Bon Pain. Yes, it's more expensive, but it's more like real food. Tastes better too. And I don't have the shakes when I get home.

[skygazer]

2. My mother smoked cigarettes until the day she died of cancer

I think a lot of that has to do with fear. Fear is not rational. My mother feared death and took refuge in something that was familiar and soothing to her. I think the same could be said for people with food issues. The fear of those health issues can cause behavior that paradoxically makes them worse.

And it's so frustrating. I'm not remotely morbidly obese but I am more overweight than I've ever been in my life. Today, a pair of size 14 jeans were tight on me and it sent me into a nasty mood.

I don't overeat but I'm 46 and as you age, it's harder to maintain. I have some intestinal issues that tend to make me bloated, and I've had a knee issue for the last two years that make it hard to exercise.

All of that, I realize, can be worked around and dealt with but it's hard enough to lose weight without other impediments in the way. My sister gained a lot of weight from the combination of diabetes and a back injury - there were so few exercises she could do. Even walking was a strain on her back. And so results come so slowly, people despair and fall into bad habits.

It's like anything else - people don't always behave rationally. In fact, I sometimes think they don't most of the time.

[spacelady]

30. This is such an understanding post. I hope a lot of people read this

and get what you are saying. You must have had a relationship with your mother that transcended those things that we use to blame and must have been a great comfort to her.

Yes, skeletal injuries & problems do not lend themselves well to the "Get Up And Move!" school of weight loss - I feel that too.

[demgurl]

3. If you truly want to understand....

I will share one of my old posts with you and then you can ask me any questions you want.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1284597

Confessions of an addict.

I am an addict. There, I have said it. For the most part I hide my dirty little secret and I feel I have had it under control for quite a while now but I was broadsided by someone when I went to lunch today and I have been shaken ever since. I know her secret and she does not even realize I know. The only reason I know is because there are times in my life when I would have felt a close kinship to this woman.

Beating an addiction seems relatively simple. If you smoke then you quite your cigarette habit. Do you drink and drive? You have a problem and should give up your alcohol. Do you depend on drugs to take away the problems of the real world? We have rehab for that and you go through a process to give up the drugs. Got an addiction? Give up your vice and you will have beaten it. Simple, right?

Some things are so much more complicated than they seem. That brings me back to my bathroom stall story. The restroom was empty when I entered. I felt safe taking the handicap stall. I am a bigger person and some stalls appear too small. A few minutes later someone made their way into the room and tried to open my stall. Finding my door locked, they apologized and went into the stall across from mine. I usually do not pay attention to others in the bathroom but for some reason I paid attention to this woman. I noticed she was taking a rather long time (guess that means I was as well?). I looked through the slit in my door to the floor in her stall. Was that her sandals? Was she facing the toilet? For a split second I thought of how men use the bathroom and panic struck that I was in the wrong room. My intellectual side kicked in and I realized I had checked the door before I entered. I watched as she turned around to use the stall properly.

I sat and wondered about this other person. Could it be? Could she be an addict? All the signs were there - all the things I used to do. It all fit nicely together, too nicely. When I used to throw up I would head for the big stall so I could have room to crouch around the toilet. The handicap stall was taken? Go in another one to wait so you are not so obvious. If they take too long then go with what you have. Oh! The most important thing is camouflage! You learn how to throw up to disguise the retching sound. You can learn to make it sound as if you are just normally going to the bathroom. You learn what it does to your teeth and if you are home you immediately go to brush your teeth. Yes, there is an art to binging and purging and I knew this woman had it down when I saw her feet turn around once more and I could hear her vomiting into the toilet.

I was frozen and not sure what to do. It has been a couple of years since I have thrown up and I know I would not have listened to a stranger in a restaurant. I have seen pictures of emaciated people but was not ready for what I saw when I left my stall. I could make out every bone in her arm! Her waist was so tiny and she looked so frail. I thought maybe I should tip off friends at her table but I soon found out she was sitting by herself. People in this state are very much in denial. I struggled over whether I was taking the easy way out by not saying anything - even giving her my email in case she ever wanted to talk. I was saddened as she went back to the buffet and heaped on another pile of food.

If you are addicted you just give up your vice, right? What if you are addicted to food? If you want to live you can never give up food. With any other addiction you can avoid what haunts you most and you will be safe. With food you just can not get away from your addiction - ever! (not until the day you die)

If you have never lived with a food addiction then you just do not know the struggles people go through. It is not just a matter of not being able to control yourself. One of my best friends once confided that after dinner she would send the kids outside and then she would eat every single scrap off of their plates. Another friend confessed throwing food away, to try and fight the addiction, and going back through the garbage an hour or two later when she could no longer fight it. I was once on a diet and I would make a grip of steel on my wheel every time I would pass a fast food restaurant.

I have had those times when I would binge and purge. I have had times when I went to the extremes with exercise. I have gone to the hospital because I am throwing up blood from damage of purging too much. Then there are times I have just binged.

There are all sorts of theories about reasons people go to these extremes, however, I have never heard the term 'addiction to food' used except from others who are struggling themselves. I have done this for as long as I can remember but in my teens it was just to keep my weight under control. In my teens I may have thrown up a total of possibly 25 times. I believe I now do it because of long after effects of my rape. I have talked to others who have had the same problem after a rape. Whatever the reason, this is me and I am not ready to just blame a bad childhood or a trauma that happened.

So what do you do when you are faced with your demons in the stall directly across from you? Some interactions (was that an interaction?) are like ghosts that stay with you and haunt you to your core. I wanted to reach out to this woman today but did not know how. All I knew was the denial most addicts feel. She could never give up food but could she give up purging? Would she die before she ever did? When this 75 lb., 47 year old lady looked in the mirror, does she see the fat lady from a circus?

I would never envy someone who is an addict. I know people who have been to rehab and I know the struggle they have gone through. I do wish that I had an addiction of a substance which I do not have to digest daily. Just ask anyone who has been addicted to alcohol or drugs and they will tell you they stay far away from their vices. It is much easier to deal with that addiction when you do not have to fight it everyday and consume the substance everyday.

How do you deal with a lost soul when you are one of them yourselves? How do you help another when you can not help yourself?

[Connonym]

40. :hug:

Very moving post. I wish you well. I've been there and back. :hug:

[Oeditpus Rex]

61. I don't think I've seen a more courageous post at DU

:hug:

[pagerbear]

4. Compulsive behavior defies rationality

[Breeze54]

5. Everyone has to eat. Simple.

That feeds the addiction. Humans need to eat something everyday.

It would be like being on a diet from breathing. Think about it!

[bicentennial_baby]

48. What nonsense...

There is a massive difference between an actual addiction to food and our natural need to consume food for sustenance/survival.

[RevolutionaryActs]

6. I think in the end it's comforting.

I'm not obese, but I'm not thin either, and I've had food issues most of my whole life. I can only talk from my experience with it, but it becomes a cycle.
You have a trigger at some point in your life (for me it was when my dad died when I was 10) where food becomes this escape, this thing that makes you feel better. And when my dad died, I ate because it was comforting. And I got bigger, and I hit puberty and put on more weight because of that. So then I started feeling bad about how I looked, and so I ate more, to comfort myself. To pacify myself. Which was the worst thing I could do, but it was comforting. It was familiar.

I think that happens to a lot of people, it's your best friend and your worst enemy at the same time. And it's hard to stop; you know you should stop, but you can't. It's like ending a bad relationship or something.

I also think a lot of people don't know how to eat; what's good for you, healthy portions, and that contributes to it a lot as well.


At least, that's what I think? :shrug:

[Breeze54]

7. I agree and I think people use weight as protection.

Ya know what I mean? They create a 'wall' of protection.

[EFerrari]

12. They make themselves bigger than their fear. I did that at one point.

It was amazing because I'd always been slender but at one point, that's what I did. :shrug:

[Breeze54]

13. A lot of rape victims will gain weight, for protection.

As it is a 'physical' and 'psychological shield'.
If they aren't attractive anymore, they feel 'safer'.

It's a Catch 22, as far as self esteem is concerned.

Meant to add a :hug:

[EFerrari]

14. I didn't know that. It makes perfect sense to me.

:hi:

[spacelady]

32. I think being bigger is also a way of feeling stronger in order to

be able to defend oneself better rather than a way of appearing less attractive.

[EFerrari]

35. I gained weight when I was fighting for Doug and also living with

the threat of violence (if he decompensated) with little or no back up. I needed something between me and danger.

Since he's been gone, so has all that weight been gone. :shrug:

[Iris]

9. I read an article in Prevention about emotional eating.

Or maybe it was Better Homes and Gardens, but my point is...

The article said that people who eat out of stress experience release from that stress when they eat. It suggested that this pattern might be formed in childhood. Think of a morbidly obese person who is in a hospital waiting for bypass surgery. What are the options for that person to relieve stress? Food is their only refuge at that point, so it's no wonder they turn to food when facing a major, risky, life-altering surgery.

[fizzgig]

16. i've done the same thing

i used to get so depressed after shopping for clothes or even just having a bad day that i'd go eat and always wound up feeling even more horrible about myself.

it's such a tough cycle to break

:hug:

[PeaceNikki]

8. I've been watching it, too. It's heartbreaking.

"Terrible health problems" doesn't even begin to describe it, does it?

[Raven]

10. No it doesn't. But I smoke and this TV program has made me

realize that I have the same type of addiction...you can't see it when you look at me, but I'm killing myself nonetheless. I'm thin as a rail but this show has really hit home!

[EFerrari]

15. I smoke, too, and at one point, someone said to me that

I use cigs as a buffer between me and other people. I bristled at first but, they were right. My boundaries need constant maintenance and cigs are my shortcut. Other people can be pretty taxing. I have no idea if that makes sense. :silly:

[hfojvt]

39. I thought smokers had more of a bond

They share smoke breaks, and often cigarettes with other smokers. A fellow smoker can provide a light or somebody to hang out with while smoking.

[EFerrari]

45. I think that's true, too. Smoking is an incredibly efficient activity.

I stopped for a year and had to substitute 12 things for cigs, no kidding.

[undeterred]

11. It seems like it should be purely a matter of willpower

but when I've been on a medication that actually has a side effect of suppressing my appetite its amazing. I walked out of a grocery store with no sweets in the cart at all. I never felt the urge to go get an ice cream sundae or binge on anything. The desire simply wasn't there. The drug was an anti-seizure med that affects the hypothalamus. I couldn't believe a pill could change my thoughts and behavior in the grocery store, but it did. When I went off the drug all the old behavior came back or I had to be fighting my desire to do those things. On the meds I never even THOUGHT about buying the food in the first place. We really are biochemical creatures.

Edit: I'm not extremely overweight, but I was a normal weight until midlife and then I gained a bunch, at exactly the same age my mother did. There's a strong genetic component in there too.

[Nikia]

17. I understand food addictions

I just don't understand how anyone gains that type of weight. I think that they must have some kind of medical problem too.
I think that healthy people who do normal day to day activities only get mildly obese even if they are eating huge amounts. Remember, more body weight is suppose to burn more calories.

[EFerrari]

18. When I gained 60 lbs, I didn't eat huge amounts. I was just inactive

and careless about what I did eat. The minute I got off the couch, my poor system started dumping the extra pounds. But, that was just my experience.

[pagerbear]

20. I used to be 450 lbs. I understand.

I can't speak for everyone who is morbidly obese, but I was trying to kill myself slowly. I wanted nothing more than to cease to exist, but by God, I was gonna have my comfort until that happened!

[Breeze54]

22. I'm glad you are still here....

:hug:


;)

[Avalux]

19. Food addiction is incredibly complicated.

It is a psychological addiction (not physical, as with most substances). These people know they have terrible health problems and may die because of their addiction, but the act of eating makes them feel good and relieves their stress so they can't stop. They don't want to stop.

[Breeze54]

23. Who CAN stop eating though??

:shrug:

Not physical?? :wtf:

You mean to say that fat people don't have hunger pains?? I disagree vehemently!

[Avalux]

50. That's not what I meant.

Eating when hungry is different than eating when hurting.

[bleedingheart]

21. Food addiction and depression...

a lethal combo...

I have a cousin who is slowly killing herself...she won't see a psychiatrist..so she poisons herself with food...

[Duppers]

58. I also had such a cousin

who succeed in killing herself. She died at age 42 and weighing nearly 420lbs. Several relatives had caught her crying over the years but she would not get help. For some reason I suspected that she was gay and that was certainly not acceptable in her family. So sad.
We were not close and lived in different states.

[flvegan]

24. For many of the morbidly obese, it's not an addiction at all.

It's satisfaction or enjoyment for them. Eating is a pleasure center.

I've worked with several morbidly obese folks and I've discussed this at length with them. Each time, the answer has come back to pleasure.

I know that there are a lot of folks where it's a medical issue, but I can't speak to that, not having the experience.

[pagerbear]

25. Lots of alcoholics will deny that they're addicts, too.

[flvegan]

26. As will coke fiends. Your point?

[pagerbear]

29. My point was

...in your comment you seemed to be saying that you take the patients' opinions that they're not addicted to food, or rather that it's really only about pleasure, more seriously than I might.

[flvegan]

33. Then you'd be incorrect.

Granted, you didn't have total disclosure as to the situations, so I'm not saying that you're wrong in your response.

I don't take the statements of (I won't call them patients, as I'm not a doctor) the folks I see (as a trainer/sports nutritionist) as being any more than that.

It's MY opinion that this isn't addiction. I come to that conclusion. Again, that's my observation amongst the folks I've worked with.

[Duppers]

57. Uh...about addiction

Hi, flvegan.

Isn't addiction about pleasure of some sort? The cycle of behavior begins with some tension and a building pressure, then with the indulgence comes the pleasure and release of that tension. No matter what the addiction, whether it be drugs--including alcohol and tobacco, or food, or sex, or gambling, or shop lifting---no matter what the substance or behavior, addiction is a repetitive, destruction behavior engaged in order to obtain pleasure as a release of said tension and/or as a block of pain. That tension can be caused by many different and complex things.

Whatever the driver in the addiction, the physiological and psychological are inter-related and those endorphins are always involved. Pleasure is used to stop overwhelming tension and/or to block overwhelming pain.


On edit...I think addiction can be scaled and one can be mildly addicted, as I'm addicted to reading DU. :) ;) ;)

If the behavior is destructive and the person acknowledges it's unhealthy but they cannot stop it, then it's an addiction, even if it's mild.

And yes, I'm addicted to reading online, seriously.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

27. I don't know about addiction but I can tell you that for women

metabolism slows down so drastically at the age of 30 we can only eat about ONE TENTH of what we did before and even less than that in comparison to men. Active lifestyle is meaningless and so is food content. We just get screwed by being women at that age and each 5 years is worse than the one before it. I have been on 1000 calories for ten years and I will gain a pound or two even after a long walk with the dog. It bites so much it is just cruel to endure.

[Breeze54]

31. Except heavy women forget that

many men LOVE curvy women, my ex-husband, case in point!!

I wasn't obese at 21, at all but I was bigger than my friends.

I was 5' 4" and 134 lbs! OMG!!!! SHOOT ME!!!!!!!! NOT!! :rofl:

I have gained weight since being hit by a truck and degenerative disk disease.

Kind of stopped me from cross country skiing, etc....

So?

Not all weight is from people NOT trying to maintain. Sometimes it just happens!!

But Norwegian men LOVE me!! ;)Oh-La-la-la!!

[flvegan]

34. Well, on the face of that post, this is untrue

Metabolism can be easily manipulated.

Saying that the lifestyle and food content of a person is meaningless is even less meaningless than your suggestion.

Your 1000 calorie diet for 10 years is (if a true statement) a shitty example of a starvation diet. No wonder.

[Richardo]

36. She didn't say it was a starvation diet...

...and the hostile tone of the remainder of your post is unprovoked, to say the least.

[Zuiderelle]

38. "if a true statement"

That's a pretty shitty example of something.

[Breeze54]

28. OMG!!! I'M ADDICTED TO EATING FOOD.....

like the rest of the human race. Your point? :shrug:

[EFerrari]

46. But that's asking people to prove a negative, isn't it?

:)

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

41. No, wait, let me guess. Your opinion on the Rolling Stones is...

...it's not a rock band, it's a classical orchestra that uses electric guitars.

[soleft]

42. more like the pain of not eating is worse than the pain of eating

I know a woman with emphasema who will not quick smoking because the fear of the pain of the depravation of smoking is greater than her fear of death.

[Taverner]

44. They are seratonin addicts

And the shortest path to their 'drug' is the seratonin that is released when they eat. Hence, the addiction.

Addiction has nothing to do with good or bad people, but merely chemically driven conditioned responses.

[EFerrari]

47. Amen, Taverner. n/t

[Duppers]

59. here's a 3rd vote

you're very correct. thanks.


on edit...whoops, i meant to have posted to Taverner #44.

[Iris]

52. Thanks for a sane voice, Taverner.

You said it perfectly.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

49. I have been watching that too...

and been utterly fascinated with how someone ends up getting to be 500+ pounds and unable to leave their bed for years at a time. It just blows my mind. And it kills me to see the enabling that families do. There was one 25 year old, bedridden man whose mother did everything for him -- cooking, washing him every day, treating his bedsores, and doing bathroom duty, 24/7. I am sure that his Mom would never dream of handing her son heroin to shoot, but she is doing essentially the same. Clearly there are some very serious and deep enmeshment issues going on.

I don't understand it all myself, but it is is one of the sadder things I have ever seen.

[Orsino]

51. We evolved a drive to consume as many calories as possible.

Very valuable for life in the wild, but it can work against us when so much food is so readily available.

The obese may just be too highly evolved.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

56. I am not addicted to food. I don't eat a lot of food.

Nor do I use food as a distraction, or an escape.

I have a dead thyroid gland (Hashimoto's thyroiditis) and have to take a natural thyroid extract pill every day of my life. I've taken it since I was 12 years old, in the mid-1960s. A gastric bypass would not do me any good because my metabolism is quite slow. The only operation that would help me would be liposuction.

I was of normal weight as a child and young adult, but the pounds crept on gradually as I got older. I am not immobilized, don't have joint pain or any of that stuff. I'm just 50 pounds overweight. And petite and small boned.

I wish the person who said "metabolism can be easily manipulated" would do some investigating into metabolic/endocrine disorders.



A good site by a woman who has been thru the same medical hell I've been through:

www.stopthethyroidmadness.com

[Duppers]

60. I'm so sorry for you

My husband had thyroid cancer last year and had his entire thyroid removed and he has to 'fight' to keep his weight down now. Leaving off his one big food addiction--ice cream--helps him keep the lbs. off.