Some women aren’t overweight because they have an appetite for big portions. It’s not because they loathe the treadmill, or because they have a thyroid problem, or because they’re too lazy or too busy to plan out a sensible meal or fit in a workout.
Instead, they wear their excess weight as a shield.
How-to Tips Can Miss the Mark
Most of the tips that you’ll find in magazines, websites and books focus on the how of losing weight: How to lose 20 pounds by changing your diet; how to build muscle without bulking up; how to squeeze in a workout when you’re busy; how to learn to love lunges. It’s assumed that people don’t have the tools, the knowledge, the willpower or the motivation to lose weight.
It isn’t that this advice is useless; it’s that this kind of advice misses the point of why. Weight loss, done the healthy way, leads to physical well-being, but it may not do much if there’s trauma brewing inside.
The Why
Why a shield? For individuals who’ve experienced a traumatic event, usually some kind of abuse, their weight helps them create a barrier to the outside.
For some, weight serves to minimize their looks and sexuality. In today’s society, thin is in, and if you don’t fit the mold, in theory, people will pay less attention to you and your body. Some women use their weight as protection against future abuse. According to the Survivors of Incest Anonymous:
If for instance we perceive obesity to be unattractive, and if we believe or were told that we were abused because we were attractive, we may overeat in a misguided yet totally understandable attempt to defend ourselves from further sexual assault.
Michael D. Myers, M.D., an obesity and eating disorder specialist, estimates that 40 percent of his significantly obese patients have experienced sexual abuse. On his website, he writes: “In a sense, obesity protects a person from their sexuality since, in Western culture, obesity is frowned upon.”
On sexual abuse and eating, Mary Anne Cohen, CSW, the director of The New York Center for Eating Disorders, writes:
What is the connection between sexual abuse and developing an eating disorder? The answer is guilt, shame, anesthesia, self-punishment, soothing, comfort, protection and rage.
Sexual abuse can have many different effects on the eating habits and body image of survivors. Sexual abuse violates the boundaries of the self so dramatically that inner sensations of hunger, fatigue, or sexuality become difficult to identify. People who have been sexually abused may turn to food to relieve a wide range of different states of tension that have nothing to do with hunger. It is their confusion and uncertainty about their inner perceptions that leads them to focus on the food.
Many survivors of sexual abuse often work to become very fat or very thin in an attempt to render themselves unattractive. In this way, they try to de-sexualize themselves. Other survivors obsessively diet, starve, or purge to make their bodies ‘perfect.’ A perfect body is their attempt to feel more powerful, invulnerable, and in control, so as not to re-experience the powerlessness they felt as children. Indeed, some large men and women, who are survivors of sexual abuse, are afraid to lose weight because it will render them feeling smaller and childlike. This, in turn, may bring back painful memories that are difficult to cope with.
A patient described how she gained 30 pounds at the age of 8. Her mother accused her of eating too many raviolis at the school cafeteria. She was scared to tell her mother that her uncle was sexually molesting her. Another patient had been abused by her alcoholic father starting at age 7. As a teenager, she binged and made herself throw up before going out with her boyfriend because she felt dirty, anxious, and guilty about her sexual feelings.
Emotional Eating
For some, weight is a consequence of emotional eating. Emotions may become too high-risk. They’ve been through so much already that they’d rather avoid any more hurt. They’d rather push down the depression, anxiety, anger, confusion or pain. They may use food to numb their feelings or soothe their discomfort. Perhaps it started out as a once-in-awhile comforting treat and mushroomed into a full-fledged habit: Heading for the fridge or pantry becomes an automatic reaction to upset and anxiety.
Some Research
Research has yet to show a causal relationship between childhood abuse and adult obesity, but studies have found a link. A 2007 prospective study published in the journal Pediatrics found that sexually abused girls were more likely to be obese than girls who weren’t abused. By 24 years old, the girls who were abused were twice as likely to be obese than girls who weren’t. The authors said, “These results provide some of the first prospective evidence that childhood sexual abuse may place female individuals at inordinately high risk for developing and maintaining obesity,” though one of the researchers noted that there’s no “one-to-one relationship” between the two.
Research has found a link between obesity and physical and sexual child abuse in middle-aged women. Even when taking other variables into account — including education, stress, age and physical inactivity — a large California study of 11,115 women ages 18 and older also found a connection between child abuse and obesity. In another study, as the number and severity of the abuse went up, so did the risk for obesity.
On his website, Arya M. Sharma, M.D., chair of the Cardiovascular Obesity Research and Management at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, writes:
To anyone running a bariatric clinic, stories of sexual abuse linked to obesity should come as no surprise. Previous reports have estimated that as many as 20-40% of patients seeking weight loss, particularly bariatric surgery, may have histories of sexual abuse.
He cites one meta-analysis to the contrary, which didn’t find a significant link between obesity and abuse. However, only two studies were used in the calculations. He writes:
So does the meta-analysis by Maras change my opinion - not in the least.
As someone regularly dealing with bariatric patients, I would need far more robust data to convince me that what I hear reported from my patients is purely anecdotal. I will continue to maintain that no obesity history is complete without explicitly exploring sexual, mental, and physical abuse and their relationship to ingestive behavior.
Childhood abuse may up the risk for eating disorders and disordered eating, too. A 2000 study showed that teens with a history of sexual or physical abuse had an increased risk of disordered eating, including vomiting and laxative use. Other research found that girls who were sexually abused were more likely to have eating disorders as teens.
Abuse may be common among individuals with binge eating disorder (BED). For instance, a 2001 study found that out of 145 individuals with BED, 83 percent reported some kind of abuse:
59 percent reported emotional abuse, 36 percent reported physical abuse, 30 percent reported sexual abuse, 69 percent reported emotional neglect, and 49 percent reported physical neglect. Emotional abuse was associated with depression, body dissatisfaction and low self-esteem.
How To Heal
Whether your weight is an intentional barrier, a consequence of emotional eating, or a bit of both, the following tips may help:
- See a therapist. To find a therapist in your area, try Psych Central’s therapist finder. Tips on choosing a good therapist can be found here, here and here.
- Seek out resources and support. The Joshua Children’s Foundation, which helps victims of sexual child abuse, offers a list of resources.
- Work on curbing emotional eating. While working on the underlying cause of your weight — such as exploring why it’s protective and healing any trauma — is key to emotional health, reducing unhealthy behaviors can contribute to your overall health, too. This is something you can work on with your therapist. In the meantime, here are some sources to get you started: mindful emotional eating; 10 skills for mindful eating; avoiding emotional eating and dealing with it; and an inspiring story.
- Make strides to overcome the abuse or traumatic event. Life coach Evelyn Lim includes a list of tips for overcoming an abusive relationship, which can be adjusted to any trauma. Examples include distancing yourself from the past, setting boundaries and expectations, and doing what helps you feel good.
- Learn to express your emotions in a healthy way. About.com has good advice for individuals with PTSD on managing emotions, but it’s a useful list for anyone. It includes: identifying and monitoring your emotions, using writing as a tool, breathing and using relaxation techniques and seeking out social support.
- For in-the-moment relief, try simple self-soothing strategies. This blog post lists 11 suggestions that the author uses to ease her emotions. Among them you’ll find: reading poetry, talking to a friend who helps “soothe you” and bundling up in comfy layers. Consider what helps you feel better and jot it down. Keep your list handy, so when you’re in the throes of an emotional eruption, you have several ready-made solutions that specifically work for you. These can be everything from writing in your journal to walking around the block to crying to calling a good friend to attending a support group. These may not be magical remedies, but exploring healthy ways to lift your spirits or make sense of the situation can do a world of good.
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Wearing Your Weight As Armor | World of Psychology | Fast weight loss live today (9/3/2009)
31 Comments to
“Wearing Your Weight As Armor”
An excellent article. Thank you so much for making this important point.
Hi,
This is so true, I have been reading up on Laurel Mellin and Emotional Brain Training for the past few years and this is the first time I have heard someone besides her really talk about the emotional protection of being heavy.
Thanks for the great post!
The catchwords can be good or no, but have to speak it of a way tolerante and in which can solve the problem, since a lot of people needs solutions in the sector medico and until the moment there are not them, as it says findrxonline fault still main approach in this subject, expected take main letters in the subject.
Finally I have confirmation! After my mothers emotional abuse, & fathers lack of nurturing, came sexual promiscuity, & sexual abuse.
I drank to mask the pain, & was abused even more.
Alone & rejected, I got into the wrong relationships looking for the love I couldn’t get from home. Pregnant, beaten to a bloody pulp, held buy knifepoint, abducted, the jury gave him 6 months jail time. I medicated with food, icecream, alchol. I went from 118lbs to 248 now.
I still can’t shake the verbal abuse from childhood, & I’m 57 yrs old. Thank you for confirming my inner feelings. Now I know I’m not imagineing these feelings.
What is wrong with Florida?
Yeah…what is up with Florida? This is a great article…i have known for a while now that the reason that i emotionally eat is due to the sexual abuse that took place in my early childhood. Thanks for the wonderful article.
I’m in no way disagreeing with Dr. Sharma and others who find up to 40% of patients seeking help for obesity have a history of sexual abuse, but I want to point out that reports of sexual abuse of women in general seem to run about 15% to 30% of women, and that’s just what people are willing to state. A surprising number of my frIends have experienced upsetting sexual abuse as children or teens with an older person, and, in addition to clearly criminal sexual abuse, many of them had their first sexual intercourse while saying NO. They were willingly agreeing to be engaged in intimate conduct with a partner but had drawn a limit, which they clearly expressed, and that line was crossed. The guy said, “but I could tell she wanted it.” She may have “wanted” it, but she had decided NOT to, for her own physical and emotional protection, and felt powerless at her decision being overridden. This experience may be date rape but also, to the guy, seems less serious, and the girl herself does not consider it a crime but an unfortunate hurt. Count these girls and a much larger number of women have been sexually harmed than is ever normally counted.
Best article I’ve read on AOL in 10 years. I was wondering who told on us “fatties”?
this article makes more sense the most of the rubbish you read relating to weight and health, it shows how people have a love/hate relationship with food just like they have a love/hate relationship with the person or thing that made them feel so desperate in the first place.
Makes sense for an emotional eater.
This has been quite eye opening. My daughter was raped at 14 and was sexually abused by her bio dad. She went from being an active teen who weighed around 160 lbs to a withdrawn child who ballooned up to over 300 lbs in the matter of about a year. I couldn’t get any help or information from her at the time. She refused counseling and became more withdrawn the more I pushed, so I stopped pushing and waited. Now, almost 4 years later the truth has come out and we are trying to deal with all the emotions now that she’s almost up to 380 lbs after 4 years of pain…
THERE’ NOTHING WRONG WITH FLORIDA, who is obviously NOT A NATIVE ENGLISH-SPEAKER.
Dear friends, have a little compassion, cease the accusations and criticism. That is exactly WHAT THE WALKING WOUNDED DO NOT NEED.
Florida es hispano-parlante y se esta expresando lo mejor que puede. Debemos tener compasion la una para la otra, el uno para el otro.
WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER!
I myself, was not a sexual abuse victim, but my daughter was. When I found out and had the abuser arrested, I experienced another form of trauma, survivors guilt. The overwhelming feeling that I should have seen it, should have suspected. I put on over 150lbs. My armor. After years of therapy, a lot work and finding my love of horses could be another form of armor, I am 110lbs lighter and emotionally stronger. I wonder how many women are struggling like I did? What study includes us?
FINALLY!!! THIS is what I have been feeling! It’s definately been an issue for me. Everytime I lose weight and start to look better I get attention (it’s not that I am gorgeous LOL) it’s just attention that makes me VERY uncomfortable and then I gain weight back if not more. I am 43 years old and I didn’t figure this out till I was 35years old. Then this article WOW! Thank you so much! Please get this info out there because it needs to be further explored.
I wonder if the same principles apply to men being overweight and having eating disorders? I have often thought that many obese men may have been abused.
The article is well written and thought out. As an obese person I do see my habitus as armor or protection against percived and real uncomfortable emotions. But it gets to the point that the fat becomes more of a burden than a sheild but you feel locked into the behaviors and unsure of how to change. Bariatric is not a solution for everyone but it has been for me. I still struggle with finding healthier solutions for my emotions but at least now moving and excercise is more of an option.
Thank you thank you thank you for this article. Deep down I have always known this. I am 39 and only dealt with the childhood sexual abuse I endured as a child within the last 2 yrs. A good therapist helped me along with family support. Articles like this give me part of myself back that I lost and reaffirm what I always have known but couldn’t express. Dealing with and knowing this has helped me to lose currently 45 lbs. and finally start living my life.
What an Awesome article.
It has so much truth to it, I don’t really eat all that much but I have binges sometimes were I eat all day and not even hungry, I take it a step further though, I am so jealous of women that it makes it difficult for my boyfriend and I to do anything fun, example he is at the state fair and I stayed home so he could enjoy himself without me getting in one of my moods. I am tired of staying in my house to be safe, I am not huge but very dissatisfied with my body and always have been. I always think if I lose weight I will feel better but I quit before I get there. It is a never ending cycle and all I want to do is LIVE!!
Ihis article is great im an emotional eater and i know i have been through alot in my life and to see all these people have the same issue its heart warming to know theres more than me out there i know i need to lose the weight im a 28 yr old single mom of 4 ive been rapped divorced twice ive had abusive relationships all my life my oldest will be ten this month and i know i need to change so for everyone out there that is an emotional eater we can do this we conquer what ever comes our way dont let no man or person bring us down
Oh yes. True, true. Several years ago I was a real fatty. I received medical and emotional support and I began to lose the fat. As it came off I began to remember the abuse I had received. The memories came as pictures. Dropping each 8 to 10 pounds brought new memories. Tears flowed. With counseling I was able to forgive. Please get help and heal. YOU are worth it!
This article was really helpful. I’ve always had an emotional eating problem, since I was a teenager. When I was young both my parents failed to teach my brother and I the importance and basics of healthy eating, but they lacked the knowledge as well from their upbringings. Now that I am an adult I’ve really taken it upon myself to try really hard to gain more knowledge about nutrition and fitness and the effects it has on your body. I try to remember the bad things that happen to your body when you consume really bad food. However, the emotional eating still wins out, and I still battle it. What has helped me during an emotional eating frenzy has been to replace the bad food I normally gravitate towards with healthy, yummy tasting alternatives. I still fall off the wagon. Its hard to give up Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream from Ben and Jerrys. You just have to do the best you can.
this article is very accurate. I was sexually molested by one of my aunts husband since I was 8 and suddenly I started gaining weight. When I went to highschool, I started being in shape but any time that I have a romantic set back, I always gain around 30 pounds. Now I understand that I have been protecting myself all these years. I was also abused when I was 27 by a coworker, and I also gained weight back then. Now I am going to a nutritionist to make life changes and learn how to take good care of myself. I do want to get rid of this emotional burden that I carry with me.
i think i was abused when i was younger, but cannot remember - and when i married, my husband said i wasn’t any good at sex,
i have been over weight (obese now) all my life = for as long as i can remember it has been an issue and negative remarks and innuendo to outright insults have been thrown at me. the neighbours never look at me when we talk but at my fat thighs, butt and hips. their eyes always stray - i want to hide and never see anyone
I think this article is spot on. I was sexually abused at 5 years old, and never told my mother lest I should be punished. I was always a bit chunky as a child, and found it so difficult to make friends. Thus I was a loner. I turned to books (good) and food (not so good) for comfort. My first sexual encounter… I thought I wanted to, but was scared, and told him “No!” It ended up that he date raped me. I was 15…
Married at 21, he was as abusive as hell, divorced about five years later. Three weeks after that divorce was final, I met and later married the 2nd ex, who was completely emotionally unavailable for me. I had lost weight from 210 to 155, but during this relationship regained all the lost weight and then some.
Over the course of time, I ballooned up to 300#. I finally had gastric bypass, and as the weight and fat started coming off, I finally had nowhere to hide… Either I could stay on the antidepressants I was on at the time, or I could start facing life.
Thank G-d I started facing life.
I am once again single, working and going to school, preparing to enter university. I am so thrilled with life, although it is very hard at times. However, I am learning ~~
I’ve known I had this problem, but I’ve never seen it written down. I was abused by my step-father for 2 years. I blocked out the memories until I was 16, but I ballooned up to almost 400lbs before I even got out of high school. I had a nervous breakdown when I remembered and finally told my mom when I turned 18. The weight started dropping off as soon as he left. I’m now 21 and almost to the 300lb mark. I’ve never had a real boyfriend though (couldn’t handle getting that close), and I’m afraid that I’ll freak out and gain the weight back that I’ve had as a shield since I was 12.
This phenomena is not limited to children. As a young child I ate a lot to get my parents attention because they spent an inordinate amount of time forcing my younger sister (by 13 months) to eat. Therefore, I ate toprove I was the good child. However, I slimmed down around 18 and was then subjected to a world of dating and date rape. I subsequently gained a lot of weight and continued to gain after each encounter until I reached the point where I no longer received unwanted advances. I am now comfortable with my armor but my body is breaking down. The doctors keep telling me to lose weight or I will be subject to hip and knee replacement surgeries in the near future.
My daughter is very overweight - I do not know of any abuse, but in high school all of her boyfriend relationships ended poorly. She is 24 and hides food and eats in secret a lot. I don’t know how to help her. I am afraid to say the wrong thing, but feel I need to do, or say something to help her. Any suggestions?
I finally feel like someone understands
I was abused by my own brother. I was in good shape in high school, played three sports, but then I gained weight and when I start to lose it and look good I cannot take it. I have been with the same person for over 25 years and he never says a thing about my weight (180) lbs. I would love to lose the weight and feel better about myself.
The Let Go…Let Peace Come In Foundation is a newly formed nonprofit with a mission to help heal and support adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse worldwide. We are actively seeking adult survivors who would be willing to post a childhood photo and caption, their story, or their creative expressions to our website http://www.letgoletpeacecomein.org. By uniting survivors from across the globe we can help provide a stronger and more powerful voice to those survivors who have not yet found the courage to speak out. Together we can; together we should; together we NEED to stand up and be counted. Please visit our site for more details on how you can send us your submissions.
Thank you for everything you do!
Gretchen Paules
Administrative Director
Let Go…Let Peace Come In Foundation
111 Presidential Blvd., Suite 212
Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004
Such a great post! I have started to research more into this and see that there is some more on the subject over on EBT News:
http://ebtnews.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/the-secondary-gain-of-body-size/
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 5 Sep 2009
