Why Overeating isn’t Your Fault

You – the person – are not weak, bad or have anything wrong with you because you overeat. Overeating happened to you, you didn’t cause it.

When you are subjected to some kind of external control over your eating during childhood either by “full-on dieting-”, or over-zelliously health-conscious- or “perfectionist”-parent(s)/carer(s) or you experience food scarcity for financial reasons, you will most likely gain a large appetite as a result.

When children are born, they all possess natural overeating protection. They all will be automatically prevented from overeating due to body detecting that enough food has been eaten and to avoid any unpleasant sensations overeating produces. This is how eating works, but only if the child’s hunger is not denied.

Here are some examples of a child’s hunger being denied:

“You can’t have anything till it time to eat.”

“You can’t be hungry yet”

“No, you can’t have more food, you’ve had enough.”

“You can’t have a chocolate bar, but you can have an apple.”

“You must be disciplined to only eat at mealtimes.”

“We don’t have any more food, it’s all gone.”

“We can only afford to eat at mealtimes, so no snacks.”

“That’s all there is, make it last.”

Did your childhood sound like this?

Or were you lucky enough for your childhood to sound like this?:

“Be sure to tell me when you feel hungry for food.”

“What food do you feel your body asking you for?”

“Can I get you some more or anything else, do you feel you need more food to be satisfied?”

Appetites grow because when the child’s hunger is denied because the body detects food is not forthcoming when it – the body – needs it. This sets the body into “starvation mode”, which forces the child to eat more food when they get the chance and to eat foods higher in energy e.g. sugar and fat.

There you have the first beginnings of the appetite enlargement process – the child has developed a physical need to eat more food and to eat more sugar and fat. They must overeat and eat sugar and fat to make them feel ok. The parent(s)/carer(s) take this as evidence of greed or a natural tendency to overeat and so restrict them all the more.

So now the child has a larger appetite than normal appetite and they are being denied which produces an even greater level of hunger denial.

In actual fact, it’s actually the stronger-willed children which will react more strongly to the eating being curtailed. So, if your appetite has grown, you are the stronger, not the weaker of humankind.

The physical need to eat more food and more energy-dense foods is an amazingly powerful force because this is an existential threat to your body. But, the physical need to eat more isn’t the only thing that is set off by hunger-denial.

The body has a second reaction to not getting the food it needs when it is hungry. This second reaction is it linking itself to something else in the body that will make the person eat more energy. This “something else” is any discomfort you feel. The body is highly intelligent and effective in doing this because there is plenty of discomfort – mostly emotional – at this stage. Much of the emotional discomfort comes from being on the receiving end of an appetite which comes out of nowhere. This confused and shamed state is emotionally painful enough for an adult, let alone a child and can easily tipped them over into trauma.

From them on your eating is physically driven to eat more and more sugar and fat, but also whenever your body or mind perceives any kind of discomfort you are driven to eat. The link to discomfort is how people who overeat can identify with eating to comfort themselves. I call comfort eating, “discomfort eating!”

The physical drive to eat is made worse by the fact that from now on they are hell-bent on denying their own hunger through self-control. The discomfort-drive to eat is made worse by the fact that, again, being on the receiving end of an appetite which comes out of nowhere and no is increasing the harder you try.