To think if you were eating yourself to death...

[softlysoftly]

...and you couldn't get out of bed or care for yourself. Then how would you actually get the food to maintain that weight?

Surely if you were so worried about the loved one you are caring for you would stop bringing them bad / excessive food?

Yes I stupidly clicked on the a "documentary" about it.

I swing between binge eating and restricting, so can see the similarities between the two. The binge eating is easier to fall into though, you kind of reach a point where you think, "fuck it, why fight it" and just keep going. I can see how easy it would be to reach the tipping point and just think it was already too late to stop.

I think it happens even in less extreme cases, I know plenty of people who have been on diets then slipped up on a single treat and just written off the whole day after. Logically the single slip up could have been ignored and moved past, but somehow the mind just throws it's hands up and loses control. And then it's easy to say that one day is written off, may as well write off the whole week, the whole month, the whole year...

Not being able to avoid food entirely makes it so hard to resist, and if the average person struggles then someone with an addiction is in a hell of a position.

I know the only reason I haven't ended up so huge is that I swing to the other extreme.

My late stepfather was an alcoholic. He developed vascular dementia. My mum cared for him.

When she decided that she wasn't going to buy him any more wine he was very abusive towards her. Then one day he set off to get the wine himself. He got confused and lost and was brought back by the police. His HCP advised her to continue buying the wine for her safety and his until he was takne into hospital and detoxed.

never you could be describing my family member - before they became housebound they used to get lost, fall and injure themselves and become involved in street altercations whilst out looking for booze as their alcoholic dementia worsened. On the occasions when a "dry house" policy was instituted their behaviour became completely intolerable: verbal and physical abuse leading from desperation and fear of "the rattles", huge anxiety, mounting distress and eventually withdrawal fitting resulting in hospitalisation (where they were also unmanageable, and would be sedated). For those still involved in their care there was a heartbreaking decision to be made: provide the poison to ease the pain, or refuse and watch hell break loose in the body of one we loved.

I have a compulsive eating disorder, although it is now mostly under control. I was terrified that I would end up like this. Thankfully I moved abroad and in this country was straight away referred to an eating disorders clinic. I thought this would involve lots of therapy but there wasn't any. It was all about eating schedules and regular eating. It was about creating order out of chaos. What was being eaten and how much was secondary.

westie great to hear you have a better handle on things now.

perhaps, these days, it's easier to get to the point of no return with overeating?

Lots of people are a bit overweight (as compared to say 20 years ago) and so being a bit overweight is no big deal, therefore quite fat is a problem but not a huge one.
But once you are quite fat you may be dangerously close to the point of losing control of your eating?

lazy thank you, it's rare for me to string a sentence together coherently at the moment as I'm pregnant, so I take huge satisfaction from your complements.

I'm an ex smoker, and even now it is very easy to have a game of "double speak" with yourself, setting yourself up to "fail", and using that failure as justification to smoke or continue to smoke. If I can persuade myself that smoking is fine because XYZ, knowing how bad it is for me, how bad it would be for my baby and how much society at large despises smoking and encourages cessation then I can't begin to imagine how hard it must be as a morbid overeater to even admit to having a problem, let alone take steps to heal myself and those around me whilst society judges, NHS fails to provide suitable bariatric equipment for my use, AND I have to be exposed to my addiction EVERY SINGLE DAY. Those who turn eating orders around and survive impress me with the sort of willpower I could only dream of.

*quick point - I don't smoke any more, but I'm still tempted daily, and probably would smoke again were it not for my tiny acrobat.

Didn't watch the programme, so don't know if it was addressed there, but I wonder how people can afford to eat so much?

When people are morbidly obese, do they have to eat a lot to maintain the weight, or does it kind of plateau?

Congratulations on your weight loss George.

I am interested in your statement - the difference in how people treat me is remarkable, despite me being the same person

Are you really the same person, though? The difference regarding things like mobility must be enormous, so don't you feel that in some ways you are a different person?

I cannot imagine hungry is any different now that she has lost weight in regards to the aspect of her that prefers eye contact, acknowledgement, respect, listened to and a feeling of acceptance etc.

people do treat me differently now I have regained my weight and it is opposite to what I have typed above, mostly, not always.

I suspect that the anorexic side of the spectrum can be easier to manage, you can be a functioning anorexic, channel your need to control and restrict into obsessiveness about food & exercise.

It dominates your life but isnt actually making you ill, you can argue that you enjoy all that running, you're not obsessive you just want to eat healthily.

Compulsive eating seems like quite a different animal to me, there doesn't seem to be a way to channel it into something less harmful ?

I can't see how these feeders aren't at risk of arrest for manslaughter. Surely if you had someone helpless in a bed and you injected heroin into them until they died you'd be arrested?

Quaffle, I suppose because the feeder is only making the food available, it's the overweight person who chooses to eat it.
A person supplying heroin would be guilty of supplying a class A drug, and therefore could be prosecuted.
Injecting someone with poison would constitute murder.

I dont think you can make a case against someone for supplying food.

I cannot imagine hungry is any different now that she has lost weight in regards to the aspect of her that prefers eye contact, acknowledgement, respect, listened to and a feeling of acceptance etc.

people do treat me differently now I have regained my weight and it is opposite to what I have typed above, mostly, not always.

Your post makes me Sole.

Of course, everyone should be treated with respect.

gravy you are absolutely right about the respect thing. I work for the NHS, in an area with a fairly high rate of bariatric admissions.
Sadly most very large patients I come into contact with are treated as a logistical problem rather than individuals with needs and personalities. The biggest problem is staff saying "I won't work with that patient, I'll hurt myself" within earshot of the patient. If you have manual handling concerns fine, but don't voice your concerns so unconstructively and so callously, and certainly don't do it where you can be heard by anyone, let alone the patient in question.
Secondly, we have a shortage of equipment (because it is cheaper for the NHS to pay to borrow these things by the day from big companies than to buy them outright). So a bariatric patient may spend hours (6+ is not unusual) on an A+E gurney (very narrow even for non-bariatric patients) waiting for a bed, chair, commode, hoist, hoist sling, glide sheet or walking frame of a size suitable to accommodate their needs.
Finally, in short staffed wards a bariatric patient needing manual handling assistance will typically be well down the list for assistance because it may take 6 or 8 people to achieve a manuover, and there will be hesitance among staff who fear injury as well as prejudice that the patient "got themselves into that state, why should I put my back at risk to help them?"

Its a difficult one, drug or alcohol addiction can lead to acute mh problems and a patient being sectioned because of this. Detox from alcohol or drugs using medication takes about 14 days. if a person is anorexic they can be sectioned and put on a drip, what medical intervention (except therapy) is there if you over eat and don't want to stop.

As for family enabling, I've seen family members pick people up who have left detox early with drugs and alcohol in the car waiting for them

Are you really the same person, though?
Yes, you are. I lost six stone at university, many years ago. All of a sudden, people who hadn't noticed me before, male and female, 'found' me. I'd worked in the bar for a year, and still they hadn't noticed me. I actually punched one chap from the rugger team who offered to introduce me to some real sex since I was now 'fit' enough in all ways to enjoy it! I was the same person, I was just as funny and clever as I'd been before. My music taste hadn't changed, my politics hadn't. I'd just been invisible, despite being a size 24.

I have learnt more from this thread than hours of reality TV style documentaries. Why doesn't TV deal with some of these questions? Yes I think there's a place for human interest shows, as long as they're done in a thoughtful way. But I wish people who worked in TV could raise the quality of the debate to this level.

"perhaps, these days, it's easier to get to the point of no return with overeating?"

I think the stigma is actually greater now, I'm really interested in vintage fashion etc. If you look through old beauty magazines especially if you go back to the 20's-40's you will see weight loss adverts, but you also see weight gain ones. Can you imagine those nowadays??

Back then diet was fucking awful, old recipes are packed full of lard etc and fizzy drinks were prescribed by doctors! They got more exercise which helped, but there also wasn't the same skinny worship we have now, and while the icons of the day were usually very slim there also weren't magazines devoted to shaming fat celebs.

Nowadays we are pushed heavily towards an unrealistic ideal with photoshopping of photos etc while simultaneously reminded of how gross and shameful extra weight is.

If you are larger you are constantly reduced to just your weight. Look at those wonderful shock news reports on the "obesity epidemic" which is always endless footage of fat people walking down streets but with no faces. If you are comfort eating/binge eating and then confronted by that it is so easy to just think, fuck it, can't beat this, may as well cheer myself up with some food.

I remember reading that binge eating is also meant to generate an endorphin rush, in a way that eating calmly doesn't. Which heightens the guilt cycle, because you then know that binging again will make you feel happier.

Hell, neverputasockinatoaster, what a lot your poor mum had to put up with. I hope she is happy and OK now.

Food is different to drugs and alcohol in that it could be a healthy compulsion though.The wife could have been a feeder and just served him endless homemade low calorie meals, salads or healthy snacks the whole day.
I thought it was interesting that despite seeing him seriously unhappy none of the other family members made any effort with their weight either. Many people who have suffered with alcoholics in their family are really careful around drink and people that drink.

Point taken Dawn.

The rugger guys sounds like a right pillock.

Yes I think there's a place for human interest shows, as long as they're done in a thoughtful way

^ I agree with this.

Too many of these programmes are reduced to sensationalism, which is why I tend to avoid. Don't know if this prog fell into that category?

Food is not alien to our natural state as are other substances.. Overeaters are dependent on eating to soothe anxiety etc within their lives. This addiction can be overcome.

Just heard this on the radio.