I am going to start this with a couple of fat jokes.
I have so many double chins I look like I am staring at you over a pile of pancakes.
Seriously though, I'm not fat, I'm just 4 feet too short.
Fat jokes - you gotta love them.
But what if being fat isn't the problem? With so many overweight people in this country perhaps we should look a little closer at the cause. Maybe the obese aren't a bunch of twinkie eating pigs.
What if they are:
incest survivors, victims of sexual assault, abused as children, suffering from PTSD, recovering drug addicts, depressed, suicidal?
Would society tend to show a little compassion for an individual suffering from any of these ailments? Would society judge and victimized an individual for a condition that is out of his or her control?
WHEE (Weight, Health, Eating and Exercise) is a community support diary for Kossacks who are currently or planning to start losing, gaining or maintaining their weight through diet and exercise or fitness. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are working on your weight or fitness, please -- join us! You can also click the WHEE tag to view all diary posts.
A recent TIMES article shows how childhood trauma can cause adult obesity.
... a systematic study of 286 obese people, and discovered that 50% had been sexually abused as children. That rate is more than 50% higher than the rate normally reported by women, and more than triple the average rate in men.
A 2007 study of more than 11,000 California women found that those who had been abused as children were 27% more likely to be obese as adults, compared with those who had not, after adjusting for other factors. A 2009 study of more than 15,000 adolescents found that sexual abuse in childhood raised the risk of obesity 66% in males in adulthood.
The two possibilities for obesity discussed were psychological and physiological.
The psychology goes something like this: Some folks self medicate with drugs and alcohol, and some do it with food. Self medication is simply to medicate oneself without professional supervision so as to alleviate an illness or a condition. Painful trauma or abuse often requires treatment for recovery. Self treatment with something comforting such as food is not uncommon. The food becomes the solution to the problem, the emotional release to cope with the difficulty.
The physiological goes something like this:
For most of human evolution, a stressful world would have been marked by famines or periods of starvation, and that environment might have resulted in a particular pattern of gene expression that would have prompted the body to store more fat in preparation for the next bout of scarcity. Today, of course, the same response to stress would result in obesity.
I was surprised to learn, when attending a training on domestic violence, that infants can be born with PTSD. The stress hormone cortisol is found in measurable amounts as early as the seventeenth week of gestation. When the levels of cortisol where higher in the mother, they were also higher in the fetus. The issues of domestic violence and child abuse are generational, children grow up to repeat what they have been taught. A child exposed to domestic violence is the strongest risk factor of transmitting violent behavior from one generation to the next.
Generational abuse may be doing much more to families and health than we currently understand. Obesity may be one of many undiagnosed signs of childhood trauma.
The TIMEs article closes with this:
"It's not a secret that there is a growing epidemic of obesity and there's no question that the way we eat and the way we exercise, or do not exercise, is contributing to it. But it's a huge mistake to attribute it just to the need to close down fast-food restaurants and turn off the TV. There's important biology here early in life that needs attention," says Shonkoff.
I know many people who have starved themselves to try to lose weight (myself included). But no matter how hard we try, we fail to meet the quest for weight loss with a positive outcome. Yes, we do lose some weight, but usually gain it all back. We blame ourselves, after all we have been taught that diet and exercise is all that is necessary. We have been taught that the obese are a drain on society. Perhaps turning this belief on it's head and treating obesity as a mental health or genetic issue is a better solution, at least for some.
To have lived through childhood abuse and then be looked upon with disdain for suffering from obesity is tragic. As a society we would have the good sense to assist and not verbally assault the abused child. As an adult obesity is often a cause of social isolation and emotional suffering.
And fat jokes? Maybe they really aren't funny. Just like incest and domestic violence jokes aren't funny.
WHEE diary schedule:
April 28
Wed AM - WHEE Open
Wed PM - Edward Spurlock? (please confirm or correct)
April 29
Thurs AM - WHEE Open
Thurs PM - WHEE Open
April 30
Fri AM - WHEE Open
Fri PM - Wee Mama (weekly - let me know if you'd like it)
May 1
Sat AM - WHEE Open
Sat PM - WHEE Open
May 2
Sun AM - WHEE Open
Sun PM - WHEE Open
May 3
Mon AM - NC Dem (Quads- Muscle of the Month)
Mon PM - WHEE Open
May 4
Tues AM - WHEE Open
Tues PM - Debbieleft
Let me know if you would like to sign up and write a WHEE diary. Everyone is welcome.