To want to offer up to all the fat shamers...

[WichitaLineman]

... On mumsnet who peddle the old "fat people are lazy and lack will -power" or proffer their simplistic formula of "eat less, move more" an incredibly succinct description of food addiction by Marcus Brigstocke. I will admit that that sentence isn't quite so succinct

"Eating is different [from drug addiction]; it's dirty, it's horrible - you do it on your own and you wear it. [With] alcohol and drugs, you have moments of sobriety, [but] you don't stop being fat. You wear it; everyone can see it - it is a brand… an overcoat of shame for everyone to see.

"You despise yourself, you make promises to yourself, you say 'I had a bad day, that was bad but that means this is baseline and I can start', then you go and break those promises and do it again, and worse.

"Eating disorders are more pervasive and subtle [than alcohol and drugs] and availability and acceptability are much higher... the ”high“ comes from the totally full-up feeling ”It is an anaesthetic. You lie like a python digesting what you have, it slows your brain down and you are physically inert. Numb and dull, that is the feeling you get."

Whilst I am not saying that every obese person is a compulsive overeater, I wold wager that most are, including myself. This has resonated with me and is the best description I have read of the self-loathing involved in compulsive overeating. It is a faulty mechanism to deal with emotional pain and the fat shamers can't cause any more shame than we already feel for ourselves.

Whilst there are many people on mn who are understanding, I am always appalled by those who aren't. Please think on this when those threads come up. Thank you.

If you asked any of my friends/family, even my husband, they would say I just enjoyed my food too much.

I don't enjoy food at all, I hate it, I feel utter relief when all the food is gone, or when I feel so sick I can't eat more, because then I can stop eating. It's a compulsion.

I went to the GP to ask for help and was given lots of sheets on low fat eating. I know more about dieting than many, I know the calorie content of everything, I need a way to get over the compulsion to eat, not healthy eating advice.

Perhaps that is true for her. Although it sounds like you are describing me. Exactly.

My husband believes this to be true about me and he and I are very intimate and share nearly everything.

Sorry sillyoldfool - xpost - that was for worra.

It's all about deceit, isn't it silly? I fear if my husband knew me - really knew me - he would think I am as worthless as I believe I am. I prefer him to think I am fat and jolly and fully functioning. It also means we don't have to address the eating disorder. Very fucked up.

I remember very clearly the moment I realised that people liked me if I was giggly and jolly, I was 12. I assumed that persona, despite going home and crying in secret, when I wasn't stealing money and going to the cornershop, telling the shopkeeper (who knew my family well) that my mum needed a big bar of dairy milk for making a cake, then going to hide at the rec and eating it all as quickly as possible.

I can't imagine being honest with people about it all in real life.

Your logic doesn't make sense, sorry. Anybody who's ever been on a diet knows that control and denial are needed. There are hundreds of us here on MN alone, I'm currently on the 5/2 threads.

I'm hungry as we speak as its a fast day today. I've denied myself things I wanted, and forced myself to exert control. It's not bloody easy and I'd never say it was. But it's a biological fact, not a value judgement.

thankyou for posting the quote at the beginning of this thread, it really really struck a chord. especially the bit about wearing fatness as a coat.

I quite young and work in a creative industry, but can't dress the way people would expect me to, I turn up for interviews and they look at me, and i can feel them thinking I must be crap at what I do, because I look this way.

I can exert very strict control about what I eat, I can be extremely disciplined. I have lost many many stones and been a size 8 gym bunny type, but when I'm slim the obsessive control is just another way my food issues manifest. It just takes a small emotional upheaval and I loose control and end up spiralling towards fat again.

Op thank you for quote. It really struck a chord for me x

Morris. You are deliberately missing my point. I am not going to reach everyone and that is fine. Most people have been awesome. Thank you

I think an awful lot of people swing between the control and obsession and bingeing or lack of control. It is just too easy to eat, same with drinking and other things that can cause you issues. If you are feeling crap about yourself of course it's easy to eat or drink etc. but I still think the overabundance of food, especially bad food plays a part.

fancyashandy i agree, the world we live in, its a miracle we arent all obese.
Im on the 5:2 at the moment. I see it as nwcessary to 'evolve' and survive (exaggeration) in the environment that doesnt suit us humans.

Perhaps that is true for her. Although it sounds like you are describing me. Exactly.

Yes it is true for her. Thank you for accepting that.

It's also true for many people but not true for many others. That's the only point I was trying to make.

Because some ignorant tossers tar all obese people as weak willed/greedy/lacking self control, it doesn't take away the fact that some individual people actually are and they are quite happy to be honest and admit it. However, that does not mean they speak for anyone other than themselves.

In my friend's case, her open and honest way of thinking was what prevented her from continuing to over feed her DD. When her DD became overweight as a child, she realised she had no real idea of what a child size portion should look like because her idea of food portions in general were skewed.

Try telling her she over eats because it's a compulsion and she'll rip you a new one for daring to assume something so personal

I'm surprised more folk aren't obese either TBH. I imagine a future like Walle unless someone invents some miracle cure and a pill to keep you slim.

I'm sort of on the 5:2 as well (fast day today and really struggle to not creep ver that 500). Trying to have fast days anyway - it's really removed the guilt and obsession I had calorie counting in the past and being really down when I blew a day and overate.

I agree with Worra. Some people are weak willed. It doesn't make them a bad person it just means that they can't always say no to food. It also doesn't mean that they are weak willed in other areas of their life. In fact I am that person now. I think I have dealt with my emotional food issues as best I can. I know how to control my weight. I put weight on over Christmas because I was weak willed and ate all of the kids chocolate. It wasn't emotional eating. It was just there so I ate it. By saying this I am not judging anyone or trying to offend anyone. It was just what happened. Eating when I was in the throes of an eating disorder was a totally different experience, something which at the time I felt I had no control over and did very much have an emotional aspect. The only way I was able to deal with this was to separate the two things and it took a long time.

I don't think over eating always has an emotional side. I know of many people who have eaten a moderate diet but over the years, as their metabolism slows, they have gradually put weight on.

I think a lot of our weight problems in society in general come down to education and how food is presented to us. If you go into a supermarket you are bombarded with offers encouraging you to over buy and therefore overeat as you don't want to create waste. Generally these offers are for high sugar and high salt products. Over time our taste for plainer foods is eroded and we fall into a trap of wanting to eat all this crap. We are also sucked into all these diet companies who are businesses. Yes they want you to lose weight but they want you to put it back on so you go back to them. They don't advocate a particularly healthy lifestyle and they also don't enable you to deal with any emotional issues you have that are associated with food. As someone else said our opportunity for exercise has been gradually eroded due to lack of open spaces and physical jobs being replaced by machinery. This obviously has nothing to do with emotional eating but I do think it makes everything easier to start and harder to stop.

Wichita I really hope you find the answers you are looking for and you learn to love yourself enough to deal with your food issues.

Worra, i agree with what u said upthread, i would never believe i knew what was going on in somebody elses head.

To the poster with a male relative that had anorexia, i did too. It is really embarrassing to tell people so we dont mention it. A family secret.

what the hell does 'weak willed' even mean? If you are being sufficiently 'weak willed' that you are killing yourself with food, how are you not 'mentally ill' with it?

I mean what difference does the specific failure mode of your brain make?

I think people have brains that work in certain ways programmed by genetics and environmental influences.

I think it is ridiculous that people are perfectly happy to say someone's intelligence level is a thing that is outside their control and hence you are no better a person if you a smart than if you are not, but when it comes to other equally hard wired personality traits like will power it is suddenly the strong willed that are better people and the weak willed are worse.

I think saying to someone that they 'need more will power' is as ridiculous as telling someone they need to become 'more intelligent'.

If you could buy will power in the shops then I would be buying!

Now maybe there should be way to improve, not your will power, but the expression of it in your daily life in a similar way to improving, not your native intelligence, but your performance in IQ tests. If there is a way then I think this mindfulness/meditation may be it....

I don't actually think this thread is self-selecting. I would be expecting a lot more morbidly obese people (and ffs I am not talking about people who put weight on over Christmas, I am talking about people who are debilitatingly, life-threateningly fat) to come on and tell me how they are fat and happy and to challenge what I have said.

Where are all these jolly fatties? There have maybe been two on this thread. Instead I have heard from lots of incredibly brave women who have been acutely touched by the quote in the op. I don't think those of you who are not morbidly obese really know what you are talking about. Fuck will power. I have extraordinary will power. But I can't stop killing myself with food. And I maintain that that is true for most morbidly obese people.

It seem so much more comfortable not to deal with the distress of these people and assume they are greedy and happy and could deal with it if they fancied, and exercised a little more willpower.

Please don't belittle what I am saying. Yes being morbidly obese is a different thing but being overweight starts somewhere and once you begin on that path it can be very easy to carry on.

I have NC for this but am a regular, (Gluezilla, penis beaker, festival goer etc)

its crap that I feel so ashamed that I have to nc but I do.

Worra you make as always some excellent points, but even my dearest and very closest friends (one who I have known years was with me when dc was born) would say that I just love my food and I am the fat happy person, Im not inside Im just so ashamed of what and who I am, so unhappy and so judged by everyone in society. I know I would get more help and support if I was an alchoholic or a drug addict

I am a very strong determined people in all other areas of my life, just no control over this at all

Not every obese person feels like this, but I would think there are far more than you would imagine

But Jennifer, I fundamentally believe that to be untrue I'm afraid. An eating disorder is not the same as overindulging, and you are belittling me if you state it is.

Yes, I am known as the happy, calm, serene one who can take the piss out of myself and loves her grub. Even by my family. My parents dragged me into rehab. I am fatter now than I was then, but they are so convinced by my act that they won't believe I am back there again. They think I am struggling with 5 year old baby weight and a large appetite . It is too painful for them, having been there with me before, to think that I am ill. I feel awful for causing them the inevitable heartache.

I know compulsive eating is not the same as overindulging but I bet a few started out that way: you overindulge, put weight on, hate the way you look and feel and so carry on eating to stem the pain.

What you won't seem to accept is that being obese is not always associated with being a compulsive eater or having an eating disorder. We are verging on 50% of our population being overweight. There must be other reasons to factor in.

Yes, exactly. What Jennifer just said. If half of the population is obese (we're heading that way) does that mean that half of the population has a mental illness? I'm certain it dorsnt.

I'm on ad's myself btw, I'm not a MH denier.

I'm not fat but I an relate to the OPs post alot. I know I'm putting on weight slowly.

I do think that people who overcome their eating addiction have to have a reason to do so - a 'Eureka moment'. It's so obvious, isn't it - eat less and you will lose weight, so why don't we believe that we can do it? I was 'only' about 3 stone overweight, but for years totally failed to do anything about it. I do realise that this probably makes me an over indulger rather than a compulsive eater, but it didn't feel like it at the time - it seemed that I was a 'victim' of food.

For me it was the death of a close friend - a fit healthy slim non smoker and moderate drinker. He had an inoperable kidney tumour and died inside 3 months. Seeing the devastation inflicted on his family made me so angry with myself for knowingly increasing my risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer that at last I found it in myself to lose the weight. That was 9 years ago and I'm still a healthy BMI. But if our friend hadn't died I might never have confronted my weight issue.