Oprah Winfrey is an amazing woman. She has done so much for so many and is an incredible role model to millions of people. She is beautiful, successful, smart, caring, and an inspiration to all of us, which is why her continued struggle with her weight is so sad. She has access to the best trainers, nutritionists, trainers, and chefs. She has the time and resources to research the topic, plan healthy meals, and exercise using the most up-to-date methods available. She has the support of dozens of people who genuinely care about her, yet her weight has been going up and down throughout her adult life.
She certainly has a good understanding of herself and is candid about the traumas of her past. Still, this awareness of hers has not helped her in her fight against overeating. She has followed diets, fasts, and exercise plans, but there is one thing she hasn’t done in her quest to lose weight and keep it off. I think there’s a way for her to get off the weight seesaw, once and for all. Over the years that I have been working with women who overeat, it has become apparent that dieting is doomed to failure because it does not address even one of the three main aspects of a woman’s overeating disorder. These are: obsessions with food and weight; compulsive eating behaviors and a psychological attachment to weight. Let me explain:
Overeating is driven by unconscious psychological forces that work towards a twofold goal; that of achieving emotional healing and self-care. Overeating, like all addictions, arises from a drive to resolve past hurts or inadequacies. It is meant to replace the love and care that was lacking during childhood and repair the emotional wounds that have occurred as a result of experiencing childhood trauma or neglect. Unfortunately, it is an ineffective method of achieving these goals.
The unconscious mind is rigid and inflexible and once it finds a particular solution to an emotional problem, it doesn’t let go (until the conscious mind learns a new technique). Because food came first, and perhaps the only thing that gave her calm and relief, the woman believes deep down that eating is the only way to solve her problems. A woman begins to obsess over food due to an internal turmoil. Unconsciously, she is convinced that eating is the solution to her emotional needs, but consciously, she does not experience it as useful.
No matter how much you eat, you don’t feel any more healed or filled with love than before you started. Food stays in the forefront of her consciousness as she waits for it to do what it’s supposed to do, and she hopes it will eventually. Women who overeat also start to obsess over her weight. No one wants to be heavy but of course the more a woman eats the more she earns. This creates an internal conflict between the unconscious part that is forced to overeat and the conscious part that does not want to be overweight.
The woman becomes obsessed with the need to lose weight; about what she just ate, what she wants to eat, and what she’s not supposed to eat. She feels helpless, which haunts her even more. It is exhausting. These obsessions consume a lot of time and energy, and can make the world of overeating very small. When a woman’s attention is focused exclusively on food and her weight, she doesn’t engage in the kinds of activities that could bring her true happiness and actually be healing and nourishing for her.
The second component of overeating is the compulsive aspect. A woman is forced to eat by a psychological survival mechanism that drives her to deal with her emotional problems. The need for love and healing is so great in the unconscious mind that the need to eat can be overwhelming and irresistible. However, no matter how much she eats, the woman does not experience any significant relief from her inner pain, nor does she find satisfaction for her unfulfilled longings. This failure stimulates her compulsive behavior further, leading her to eat even more, because the rigid unconscious mind is convinced that she will eventually eat enough to achieve her goals.
The last aspect of the problem of overeating and being overweight is the psychological attachment of women to excess weight. Some women gain weight to feel “safe” in the world, believing that this physical barrier could prevent further emotional or physical damage from occurring. A woman may also fear being unpleasant or incompetent and use the extra weight as a scapegoat for possible failures in her relationships or in the workplace. She thinks to herself, “It’s not me they don’t like, it’s the fat.”
Women with a history of physical or sexual abuse have a stronger attachment to weight than anyone else. In these cases, the young child feels powerless in the face of the trauma. Today, as an adult, she is convinced that she needs a strong “safety zone” to be safe from future attacks. She will never be able to keep the weight she could lose until she finds another way to feel safe in the world.
Obviously, not all women who overeat or have weight problems have experienced severe childhood trauma or neglect. What all overweight women seem to have in common, however, is a certain lack of love, attention, or protection when they were growing up. Usually, the degree to which their eating is out of control is a reflection of the severity of the problems they experienced as a child. I wouldn’t dream of speculating on Oprah’s particular issues around eating and weight, but when I see such a smart, talented, and successful woman so caught up in this area of her life, one thing seems clear: She seems to have failed to address at least one of the above aspects of this issue.
A woman can lose large amounts of weight simply by exerting willpower. Women are very strong and resourceful, organized and disciplined. They are often able to achieve the health and fitness goals they set for themselves. Still, if a woman has a psychological need to be heavy; If she hasn’t let go of her obsessions with food or she is powerfully compelled to overeat, it is unlikely that she will be able to lose weight and keep it off permanently. If she does, she will remain obsessed with what she eats and her body size, and will transfer her compulsions to compulsive eating restriction. I have seen these things happen too many times.
So what is Oprah to do? I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I think the answer is probably the same one I give to all the women I work with: address all three components of this problem in a meaningful way. I wrote my book, “Never Diet Again” for smart, capable women like Oprah; women who are successful in many areas of their lives but still can’t overcome their eating and weight problem. If you are one of these women, you must have tried every diet imaginable, and I bet they have all failed.
If you’re like the overweight women I work with, you probably feel anguish that you haven’t been able to find the key that will open the door to your freedom. However, your frustration and despair can turn into relief and happiness, because the key to solving this problem is within your grasp. Working with women who overeat, I discovered a simple and reasonable method to beat overeating, once and for all. Instead of using food for emotional healing, you should face, grieve, and let go of past hurts and losses. Then you must learn to give yourself the love, care, and protection that you were deprived of when you were little.
Oprah and women like her don’t need to continue embarking on diets that are never going to work. Instead of being forever trapped in the prison of obsessions, compulsive eating, and psychological attachment to weight, you can take the key offered to you right now, turn it in the lock, and walk through the door to freedom.
(C) Marcia Sirota MD
