The Underlying Psychological Causes Of Excess Weight

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

One of the most frequent search queries is "How to lose weight?", And the most popular answer to it is "eat less." But is it that simple? If we exclude cases associated with chronic diseases, hormonal disorders, taking certain medications, the main question is: "Why does a person actually overeat?" Yes, and not always overweight, even in the absence of serious health problems, is a consequence of overeating.

Only by identifying the real cause of excess weight, you can solve the problem radically. After all, if at a conscious level a person wants to lose weight, and the unconscious part of the psyche literally holds the excess weight with a stranglehold, then two kilograms will come to the place of the hard-won kilogram. No matter how much a person follows a diet, all efforts can be in vain or give a very short-term result. The unconscious strives to maintain the existing balance at any cost - this is how it understands caring for a person.

One of the most common reasons for gaining and maintaining weight is neurotic conflict, that is, in fact, a constant struggle with oneself. When you want one thing, but you need to do another, or for some reason it is difficult to achieve what you want. In this case, true desires can be repressed - not realized, and the conflict is played out, as it were, on the surface, legalizing through food (I want to eat - I eat - I punish myself because I was not allowed to eat).

Another very common cause of excess weight is parental attitudes. If in the parental family there was a cult of food, if the child's happy holidays and attention of adults were associated exclusively with abundant and tasty food, then as an adult, he will give himself love, attention and joy - through food.

This also includes the praise and affection of the parents if the child has eaten everything and asks for more. This is how the link "I eat a lot - I am good - they love me" is assimilated. Many people have formed the habit of “seizing” negative emotions, sometimes without realizing them, because the mother fed the baby as soon as he started crying, or gave something tasty to comfort the grown child, often without trying to figure out what upset him.

One of the very common attitudes that a child hears from childhood: “In our family, everyone is full. The genes are to blame. And a person unconsciously shapes himself in the image and likeness of significant loved ones in order to remain part of the family, part of a kind. The reason for excess weight in girls is often solidarity with their mother, an unconscious attempt not to be slimmer than their mother, so that their mother does not fall out of love.

Also, overweight can be the result of psychological trauma of the person himself or his significant loved ones. If they have suffered sexual harassment or experienced sexual abuse, the unconscious part of the psyche may try to prevent them from repeating such a terrible experience, making them "less attractive." With a high degree of probability, a mother or grandmother who has experienced a similar experience will transfer this protection - excess weight - to her daughters and granddaughters.

If a woman has an unconscious fear of relationships with men or marriage (repeated negative experience of relationships - her own or older women in the family, as the girl knew from childhood), completeness can also be a protective shield. This includes family attitudes that “all men are goats”, “only juvenile prostitutes are friends with boys”, threats: “if you bring them in the hem, I’ll kill them” and much more.

People who are in long-term relationships or are married can become overweight if their partner is overly jealous. Then it becomes a price to pay for a quiet life: if there is excess weight, they will pay less attention. However, there is another ulterior motive here - in fact, not to cheat on a husband or wife, especially if such thoughts arise often, but there is a strict internal prohibition on cheating.

A common underlying cause of excess weight is the fear of hunger, which is passed on to us by our families who survived the war. Here, both psychogenetic transmission and introjection (inclusion of other people's views and beliefs into their inner world) took place. A significant role is played by attitudes that it is a crime to leave half-eaten food, because one of the family members lost their children in the war from hunger, or that one of the relatives survived only because he was not thin. Thus, a stable link is formed in the child's unconscious: "excess weight - protection from death."

Another possible cause of excess weight may be a feeling of inner lack of fullness (most often this is a consequence of the repression of a large number of negative emotions into the unconscious in childhood). Then food will be something that fills, albeit for a very short time, and allows you to dull the unpleasant anxious feeling.

Often, excess weight serves as an additional corset, giving more stability in violation of the sense of security, or protective chain mail, masking vulnerability, sensitivity of a person.

This is not a complete list of the underlying psychological causes of excess weight. They can be very individual and unusual, and often during psychotherapeutic work, several of them are revealed at once. When the mindset “extra weight is needed” leaves the unconscious, the person begins to lose weight, making much less effort, and the result becomes stable.