to think that in the future obesity will be a mental illness

[postitgirl]

ok , bear with me....
I've been watching a few programmes about anorexia, I don't know why, they've just 'popped up' on netflix and amazon, and it's so interesting how even though people with anorexia are literally starving themselves, they still don't eat. So I started thinking, I've been trying to lose weight for years and year and years, and it's so bloody hard, because there is a thing in my brain that equates pleasure with over-eating crap. I go on a diet, and my willpower lasts for a few days, if I'm lucky, and then this overwhelming urge to break the diet, to binge, to eat chocolate and all the bad things, not just a small square of chocolate, like a bar, plus ice-cream etc etc. Any of us who struggle know what i'ts like. And it's getting worse as I get older. I'm becoming more attached to that feeling of 'release' when I do overeat... I'ts like a stress reliever to my brain - I'm suddenly a nicer person to my kids, I feel chilled, I feel satisfied, I feel happy, but of course i'ts a vicious cycle of self-hatred etc etc.
So it just occurred to me that in the future, maybe the treatment for obesity will be similar to that of anorexia, with the blame being taken out of the equation, that it will be treated literally as a mental disease - a disease where your mind is taken over, in a similar way to the way anorexia takes over. just the way some of the young girls were talking about how it was the "anorexia talking" even thuogh they knew they were making themselves ill, and could even die, the anorexia wouldn't let them eat.
Just as someone who has struggled mentally with my weight for all these years - i'ts like the "fat" talking. Cos when I'm "sane" of course I want to stop doing it, I want to get fit, and slim etc etc. And I know what I should be eating and what I shouldnt I could probably get a degree in nutrition at this stage I've done so much research on what I should eat and not eat.
What do you all think - can anyone relate.

Thanks. To you too!
And not helped by the fact that stimulant medication which really helps the ADHD leads us down the anorexia road. It's always a balance!

No, because it's not a mental illness. It's a complex issue and very much includes how the food we eat affects the hormones in our bodies. Thought work and habits play a role, but they're not the whole picture. It's an eating disorder, but it's not attributable to just one thing for many people. I suspect there's a spectrum as with many things.

www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jul/15/burnout-eating-how-chronic-pandemic-stress-can-disrupt-and-destroy-our-diet

"The tendency to turn to food when experiencing stress, low mood or mental health problems is often overlooked when it comes to public health policy, says Dr Eleanor Bryant, an associate professor of health and eating behaviour at the University of Bradford. In the government’s latest obesity strategy, for example, mental health is mentioned just once, as something that obesity affects, and providing psychological support is not mentioned in the proposals to tackle obesity.

This is despite evidence highlighting the two-way association between depression and obesity. A 2010 study found that people who were obese had a 55% greater risk of becoming depressed, and people with depression were 58% more likely to become obese.

“The government treats mental health and obesity very differently,” says Bryant, who was part of a study that explored burnout eating behaviours, “but they are both so intertwined. They’re aware of [obesity] in psychiatric hospitals because weight problems are a huge issue with people with severe mental health problems – partly due to the medication they are on – but they are not seeing it as a population-level issue. If they [the government] did, they would have to fund it, and they are cutting funding to mental health left, right and centre."

Not everyone who is obese has mental health problems. But obesity is often a symptom of a deeper underlying issue, and you can't permanently tackle the surface issue if you aren't also given the tools to work on the problems that caused someone to overeat in the first place.

@therocinante

I agree. There's been some movement on e.g. sugar addiction and binge eating disorder being more widely recognised, but overeating is still seen as a lack of self control rather than an illness.

I was diagnosed with binge eating disorder a couple of years ago at the same time as being diagnosed with ADHD. I've not told anyone about the BED because so few people believe it's a real disorder.

I hope you don't mind me asking @therocinante but after your diagnosis did you ever find a way yp overcome or alleviate the binge eating? I don't have a diagnosis but I am prone to going through cycles of restricting and then binging and it is very much linked to my emotions. If I did visit a GP to discuss this I don't know what practical help there is out there. Please feel free to ignore this as I know it's a personal question to answer!

I relate also