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> Eg some obese women are obese because they were abused as children and they unconsciously overeat/eat junk food to make themselves fat and unattractive to pot

by dan00 8y ago

> Eg some obese women are obese because they were abused as children and they unconsciously overeat/eat junk food to make themselves fat and unattractive to potential abusers ... I‘m not a big fan of these kind of „logic“ explanations. I think the explanation can be a lot more straightforward, like by being treated worthless your whole childhood you‘ve internalised this feeling and now continue to do the same to yourself. But yes, it‘s really helpful to somehow understand or least get an idea why a person behaves in a certain way.

skrebbel 8y ago
To my understanding, the logic is that there's a hormone called leptin which strongly guides your eating patterns, cravings, energy, etc. Stresses and traumas can affect your leptin levels, so particular stresses and traumas can cause you to eat more. This makes evolutionary sense, since if you're in a famine, or an ice age, you better stock up on as much food as you can. Move slowly, digest slowly, don't lose any of it, because you never know when you'll run out. Sexual abuse traumas get interpreted by some bodies as the same kinds of stress signals as famine, raising leptin, causing overeating. So I guess the broader point is that some of the "unconscious logic" going on inside us isn't just habits or odd personality traits, but actual chemical processes. Note that I got all of this knowledge from reading a Pop Sci weight loss book. HN, let me know if you know better :-)
sbenitoj 8y ago
Yeah, I hear what you’re saying, the book goes more in depth, and again the question becomes — so you’ve internalized feeling worthless, what is the solution? I believe the book provides a key to understanding how to resolve those feelings that traditional psychotherapy lacks (with its focus on identifying the problem and acting more logically, most people know exactly what they’re doing wrong, they don’t need you to point it out, they need to resolve the underlying issue — which typically seems to be some childhood trauma).

by dan00 8y ago

skrebbel 8y ago

To my understanding, the logic is that there's a hormone called leptin which strongly guides your eating patterns, cravings, energy, etc. Stresses and traumas can affect your leptin levels, so particular stresses and traumas can cause you to eat more. This makes evolutionary sense, since if you're in a famine, or an ice age, you better stock up on as much food as you can. Move slowly, digest slowly, don't lose any of it, because you never know when you'll run out. Sexual abuse traumas get interpreted by some bodies as the same kinds of stress signals as famine, raising leptin, causing overeating. So I guess the broader point is that some of the "unconscious logic" going on inside us isn't just habits or odd personality traits, but actual chemical processes. Note that I got all of this knowledge from reading a Pop Sci weight loss book. HN, let me know if you know better :-)

sbenitoj 8y ago

Yeah, I hear what you’re saying, the book goes more in depth, and again the question becomes — so you’ve internalized feeling worthless, what is the solution? I believe the book provides a key to understanding how to resolve those feelings that traditional psychotherapy lacks (with its focus on identifying the problem and acting more logically, most people know exactly what they’re doing wrong, they don’t need you to point it out, they need to resolve the underlying issue — which typically seems to be some childhood trauma).