To wonder why people don’t look after themselves

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My husband is overweight and has a number of obesity related conditions.

He has been told repeated by doctors that he needs to control his food intake and take better care of himself. He is already on life long medication, and has been for years. He is mid 40s.
He is very worried about his health but he repeatedly falls into his bad habits. His will power lasts a few days and he is eating shit again. He has he doesn’t without thinking. He is making himself and me worried.

Indont understand why he keeps doing this to himself. His response is always, “I will start tomorrow,” but he never does. This (delaying things that are difficult) is a very common trait with him and he got some therapy years ago but it hasn’t worked. He has dozens of self help / procrastination books which has never read.

He is a great husband and father to our two children. I just cannot seem to get through to him. He has a very, very traumatic childhood and he says he slipped into this attitude of putting things over whilst he was at school and its effect him his whole life. He now has a good job, we have a good life and I want it to continue.

I was the same and I’m getting better now after addressing my issues over
many years with a counsellor.
its fucking hard work, you have to be so tenacious and determined to work through it and to have a strong idea of where you are going and what you want (I was determined to thrive not just survive. I’ve come to realise that not everyone has this journey in them.

@RockPaperS yes if you are obese you have a disordered relationship with food. For some reason the medical profession and society chooses to label those that starve themselves as having an eating disorder and those that eat too much as having questionable moral fibre and a lack of will power and generally available to be patronised and lectured by idiots.

You said it: traumatic childhood. He can't manage his emotions without overeating. He needs therapy. And maybe Mounjaro at the same time. But definitely therapy.

But mostly true.

The miserable struck a chord with me in your post.
I'm miserable being overweight, I'm miserable when I perpetuate that by eating. I'm miserable when I deny myself (ie have some willpower and eat healthier food) because I feel unsettled, and well miserable!
It's a constant cycle of misery, and I guess you've got to find the source of that misery in order to address it and then change your mind set.
It's my lowest priority in all honesty, I'm overwhelmed with a lot of things in life but I think I function through it, and then that's where it comes out, people think I'm 'together' yet I don't have my relationship with food 'together', and my 'failings' are on the outside of my body for everyone to see.
My mother used food as a punishment. I know what the root cause is but I don't even know where to start fixing it, so I bumble on because I just don't have the bandwidth to dedicate to it.

Is he comfort eating bc he’s stressed/depressed? I agree with PP’s of not putting temptation his way by buying healthier alternatives to the ‘crap’ food, donuts all that’s in the house, but I guess he can just go out and buy what he’s craving himself, or eat it secretly due to guilt. Once he breaks the habit it’ll become so much easier for him to
continue, especially when he sees the weight coming off him. But starting and continuing in the early stages is the hard part. He needs to try to go for daily walks then increase to maybe twice a day and then lengthen them - that will also help shift the weight.

Rolling eyes because someone dares to suggest practical and realistic steps that someone struggling with looking after themselves could implement? What is the alternative for that poster? Just accept her perspective is right and that looking after herself requires too much time and effort and she is unworthy of this?

I think many of us have mental blocks around things and convince ourselves that it's basically impossible to change. Someone telling us that it's not that difficult can give us the impetus to at least try and build in small changes into our lifestyles. It forces us to challenge the 'story' we have created in our heads about it all being too hard and something we could never do. Even 1% improvements each week/month would add up over time and make the world of difference.

This is obviously a sensitive and complex subject but I am concerned that there is a growing narrative on MN and in society at large that we are basically impotent in our own lives. That we are all up against insurmountable challenges (trauma, ND, physical health conditions etc) so we should all just give up and accept our unhappy and unhealthy fate. We are furious at the state for not 'fixing' us or at anyone that dares to suggest we have some autonomy over our destiny and could do more for ourselves. There is so much perceived shame attached to weight and health that people react defensively before they even contemplate that the advice is coming from a well-meaning place and perhaps from someone that has shared and overcome the same struggles.

Childhood trauma - huge link between this and obesity
Past sexual abuse
Disabilities
Caregiving responsibilities
Mental health
Stress
Dopamine hits
Compulsions
Neurodiversity
Food Deserts
Cognitive differences
Genetics
Hormones (PCOS etc.)
Depression
Low Self-Esteem

If no one experienced those, then a very very small minority would be obese and those people that had better options for 'control' would respond better to weight management supports, health eating schemes, healthy routines etc.

Childhood trauma gives low self esteem. Can feel not worthy of bothering with your own health. Putting others before yourself.

I would try to just have healthier food available and change habits to do more activity together.

I've been fat for years. I don't want to be fat. I just don't have willpower. I never learned it and I don't have the willpower to learn to have willpower. It's all my fault and I acknowledge this. But it does feel paralyzing.

Nobody has will power beyond a few days. That’s human nature. And he is “looking after himself”, he’s using the only tools he knows to cope with his childhood trauma.

I am normal BMI but I put on 3kg in 2 weeks over xmas because I was homesick (living in NZ- the Gavin and Stacey + the Robbie Williams film sent me over the edge). All biscuits and imported chocolates and at no point did I feel full. Now it’s got better I am not nearly as desperate for a minstrel.

Do you think he could have some strife going on?

Are you telling me that nobody in the past experienced any of this? None of the things you have listed are new things and in many ways people in the past faced far more difficult challenges than we do now, yet obesity rates keep climbing at alarmingly high rates.

I'm not trying to 'blame' anyone but your post reads almost as a list of excuses about why obesity is almost inevitable. This simply cannot be the case because human history tells us that it isn't and there are still countries now with much lower rates than us and they are subject to almost all of the factors listed in your post.

HuckleberryBlackcurrant

Don't be so hard on yourself. You probably have a lot stronger desire to eat than people who are naturally slim. You need a lot more willpower to restrict yourself than people who don't feel the same about food.

I'm on weight loss drugs and for the first time in my life, yes restricting my calorie intake is no big deal. When I described the feeling (and how I normally feel) to my naturally slim DH, he said that he goes through life feeling like I do on the drugs. OMG. What a revelation. Yes he will skip the cake at work when he has put on a few pounds, and he would rather eat the cake - but he needs a fraction of willpower for that, compared to me.

As someone who was very very fat for a long time even when my kids were small I can honestly say to OP I don't have an answer as to why I did nothing about it.
In the last couple of years I've lost 9st 12 pounds and have about another 4st to go so that will give you some idea of how big I was.
I feel incredibly guilty for my boys especially my eldest as he was teased at school.
I know I had an addiction to food and believe obesity to that level should be treated in the same way as anorexia, even at my biggest I was in denial and used to look in the mirror and see a thin person.
As people have said he will only change it when he wants to, my now ex wife used to try to get me to listen for the sake of my health but I wasn't ready.

Eh? Surely you aren't that emotionally dim? You've answered your own question.

This is it in a nutshell. Many years of coping with trauma through food especially sugar. Uncomfortable emotions dampened down with sugar or overeating. I’ve been listening to Dr Rangan Chatterjee’s podcasts. He’s a GP who has focused on why we persist with unhealthy patterns of behaviour despite knowing what they are doing to us and how we can change this behaviour.

I was in a similar situation to your husband a few years ago after struggling with a traumatic abusive childhood and marriage, I ate my feelings.

Family systems counselling really helped me to cope with my feelings and can't believe the difference it has made. Shifting ultra processed foods out of my diet also helped my mental health. A book I found helpful was Atomic habits which helped me get into good routines.

Really though tackling the trauma through counselling was the key. Gabor Mate also has some very interesting content on this subject on you tube. Best of luck

@Bumpitybumper
As you say, those difficulties and challenges have always been part of human life but it is only very recently in human history that we have been living in such an obesogenic environment where high calorie, highly processed food is so readily available.
Chris Van Tulleken's book really is an eye opener to how the system is rigged against you, making it harder to make healthy choices.

A comment earlier on about people don’t comment to people being very thin . Yes they do I was I was ill and couldn’t eat much due to a physical illness. I had numerous people tell me to just eat , diet has gone to far . I was ill and had no choice of how I looked. If I had been anorexic this would have affected my mental health more. People don’t take time to talk and ask what’s going on in the others life . It’s all about what we look like to some. The original poster has had a rough time on here . She cares enough to post for help . Weight is complex and it takes years to find a solution. Mine did and I had lots of medical input and became very knowledgeable about my condition. Even scientists struggle look at the van Tullagan twins . Same upbringing one slim one not . I send best wishes to you as a family unit because you are all going through this.

I struggle with my weight and self care a lot linked to depression and low self esteem and some to my untreated ADHD. Reasons are complicated. I enjoy food and cooking and find cutting out very difficult. I also hate exercise. The one thing which absolutely 100% does not work for me is any kind of judgemental comments, put downs or fat shaming😳 I comfort eat so anybody having a go (however well intentioned) or tough love approach 100% fails! I know I need to loose weight but it will have to come when I am ready to do so. I grew up in a household with a parent who had disordered eating and was under weight and who monitored my weight so I suspect some comes from that too.

I'm eternally single so my advice may be poor. I have a son however and many husbands seem pretty much the same 😆.

I'd buy the healthy food, I'd cook only healthy food and take the lead here. I'd ha no crap in the house junk food wise. I'd encourage him to join me in a sport he enjoys. I'd sort it all out and try get him to come along for the ride basically.

You might have already covered weight loss injections on this thread.

I know he's a grown man but sometimes I see them needing someone to support them to this extent to help. Yes it's annoying but it might be the only way.

@Cactusmad yes I concur! I'm always under weight and was so much happier being curvy and healthy. My weight is attached to serious illnesses. People do comment thoughtlessly because it seems more acceptable - even though it's so insulting and a constant reminder you're sick.

Yes, quite. Though perhaps your second sentence is also an indicator as to why maybe DH's issues have become entrenched

Interesting take