Why Do People Get Fat?
I believe I mentioned previously that I am often stopped on the street, on buses and places where I go by friends, family and often, total strangers to tell me that I'm fat and to give me their opinions as to how they think I should lose weight and which diet to use. This is alternately true of people who drive by in cars and call me names. If they're not in a quick-get-away vehicle, then when they walk by, it's often accompanied by rolled eyes.
I have to believe they think I don't know that I'm fat, or that I don't care if I'm fat.
I'm 50. 50 years is a long time to experience and learn things. Having been through the things I've experienced, I've learned things about myself and other people. I've tried to observe and pay attention. I've tried to learn whatever I can. My journey is not over. I want to share what I've learned; about myself and what I've seen around me. Being fat and how I got this way and why it's so difficult to change is as good a discussion as any.
There is a multitude of reasons why and how people get fat. It's not just overeating. It's not just under-exercising. It's not just the wrong choice of foods. Sure, sometimes it can be one's own fault, but not always.
I'm going to list some of the reasons, not necessarily in the order of prevalence.
Physical Pain
Physical pain is an incredible motivator to remain still and not be active. It's also a motivator to eat. Physical pain is generally an indication that something is physically wrong and that activity is possibly going to make the injury worse. When people remain inactive, they become bored. Boredom is often linked with more eating. People are not designed to remain inactive for long periods of time.
Emotional Pain and/or Depression
Emotional pain and depression are, in my opinion, the biggest reasons why people gain weight. Most people don't realize it, but food changes the body's chemistry, even if for just a little while. Food changes the hormonal balances. Food releases a chemical that causes the brain to react as if it has received a pleasure stimulant.
There is also the aspect of psychological reaction to emotional distress. People are swallowing their pain. Food then becomes surrogate for the pain, the physical embodiment, the symbol of what they are suppressing that they either can't or won't confront or release, or perhaps don't know how to confront or release.
There is, in a sense, a storm raging inside, and they are hiding from that storm. They are waiting for the storm to pass, but unfortunately, the storm never passes, or passes too late to save their lives.
There is an old saying: It's not just what you're eating, it's what's eating you.
Medication
There are many medications that can cause weight gain. Sometimes it is direct cause, and sometimes it causes physical pain or depression and then it causes weight gain through indirect means.
Pregnancy
Pregnancy causes physical changes, chemical changes, psychological changes, hormonal changes, and causes food cravings. Often, in some women, it causes an increased appetite. It has even been known to cause cravings for non-foods such as dirt, toilet paper, laundry detergent, newspaper, cotton, etc. This condition of craving non-food is known as Pica (pronounced Pie-kah).
Granted, pregnancy only lasts nine months, but after the baby is born, mom is very, very tired. She's busy taking care of the baby, who wakes up to be fed every two hours around the clock. Baby often cries several hours at a time non-stop. Baby needs to be held, cuddled, diaper-changed, sang-to, fed, etc. The new mommy has no time or energy for outside physical activity. All she wants is sleep. It gets to be a long time before baby sleeps through the night, much less enough time in the day to get away from the baby to get exercise. And babysitters cost money. Not everyone has those resources. Besides, you have to be careful who you entrust with your special bundle. That's not a quick thing to just untangle yourself from that duty of taking care of your own child 24 hours a day.
As most moms can testify, losing weight after the baby is born takes a long time.
Underactive Thyroid
In my opinion, an under-active thyroid and sleep apnea are the most under-diagnosed reasons why people gain weight and find themselves unable to lose it. Many, many times I went to a doctor (several different doctors over the years) and complained that there was something wrong. I was dieting. I was exercising, I was trying to count calories. I was taking medications to lose weight. Nothing was working. At one point I was only eating lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and salad dressing. I was drinking only water. Still, I kept gaining weight. I told the doctor of what my diet consisted. He looked me square in the eyes and called me a liar! He never bothered to test my thyroid. After all, in his opinion, only overeating could cause weight gain. None of the doctors ever tested my thyroid. No doctor even considered testing my thyroid until I reached about 500 pounds!
The thyroid has the direct function of controlling caloric burn. That is the main purpose of the thyroid.
Unbalanced Body Chemistry
Ignorance of Food Content
There is a world of things that can unbalance a person's body chemistry. After all, the world of chemistry and technology has altered the way we live forever. We are subjected to food additives, high power lines, powerful electro-magnetic fields from computers, gaming consoles and televisions and other appliances. We are exposed to radiation more often from medical X-rays and since the tragedies of what happened on 9/11, airport X-rays. We are subjected to more medications which are often prescribed long before all the long-term effects can be known. Some of these effects may include weight gain, and may not always be properly attributed to the medications or whatever truly caused it.
Unbalanced body chemistry can also be caused by our own lack of knowledge of what constitutes proper diet. It can also be caused by the chemical additives included in the ready-made snacks on store shelves. How many people actually know what is in their snacks? How many people read the labels? How many people can pronounce the ingredients listed on food labels? Some snacks even include non-food items such as shellac! That's furniture polish!
Deliberate Self-Destruction
I confess. There have been years at a time when my self-esteem was so low and so battered that I tried to destroy myself with food. I'm not alone. Many people do this. Many people succeed. Most of the time when a person does this, there is an extenuating circumstance which causes their meltdown. This was true for me. I did not want any manner of favorable sexual attention from strangers, or even men I knew if I wasn't interested in them. I had my reasons. I would have gone to any lengths to ugly myself up to avoid any manner of desire from unwanted men. I was willing to risk dying to be left alone by unwanted men. That's not to say I didn't want any man. But there are unplanned consequences to any ill-thought-out plan.
Other people may have other reasons. But as Dr. Phil says, everyone who engages in destructive behavior is getting something in return that rewards that behavior. He is right. It is true.
For me, it wasn't just self-destruction. There was also the added benefit, if you could call it that, of weeding out the men who really liked me for myself and those who were only interested in having someone with perfect packaging. What I didn't count on was how many men there are that get turned on by huge butts. They fall in the same category as men who only want thin women. I'm still left not knowing who really likes me for myself and who only wants the packaging! Quite frankly, I'm more terrified of the men who prefer huge butts. I'm trying to heal. I'm trying to overcome my hurts. I'm trying to survive the things that hurt me in the past. Men who prefer huge butts take actions to sabotage the efforts of their women. They are in effect nailing the lid on their women's coffins.
Ignorance of Proper Diet
Most adults learn at some point that you just simply cannot go on eating the way you did as a teenager. They learn there is a proper combination of food that is required for the body to receive the nutrients it needs in order to function the way it should. However, most health and weight problems begin during the teen years. This is the time when most teenagers participate in what is often referred to as "grazing". They eat whatever looks like it might taste good, or exciting. This usually involves something being over-fattened, over-salted, over-sweetened, drenched in chocolate or processed. Have you ever noticed that these are the only items advertised on television? Nobody ever attempts to advertise raw cabbage, raw carrots, raw celery, raw brussell sprouts, etc. OK. You're right. Raw fruit and raw meat does get advertised. But even so, the meat is often processed.
Snack manufacturers make their living off of selling the most unhealthy consumables to the buying public. The same is true of fast-food restaurants. And the restaurants don't limit themselves to just advertising on television, radio, billboards, and park benches. No. They go another step further. They strategically locate themselves in places where people have to drive past them in order to get to other places they need to go. For example, my apartment complex has only one road leading in from the main street. Wendy's is located at the entrance corner. There is no physical way to drive in or out of the complex without passing Wendy's. Restaurant owner's understand that America is a nation conditioned to be impulse buyers. They know that as the fattest nation in the world, the probability of people stopping and buying something from their restaurant is very high. After all, they didn't go into business to go out of business! The placement of their restaurants is no accident.
Most teenagers are either unaware of what proper diet is or they are in denial. Many teenagers think that bad habits take a whole lifetime to have a negative life-destroying effect. It isn't until they reach their late twenties to mid-thirties before they realize that bad effects happen much sooner than that.
Ignorance of Caloric Effects on the Body
Most people don't realize just how many calories are in the foods they eat. They also don't realize how quickly soda pop turns into fat. They have no clue as to how much activity is required to burn all that off. As teenagers, it's easy to fall into this trap. Their bodies are burning calories at a higher rate anyways, because everything is still working. Their thyroids haven't slowed down yet, or completely stopped. They think this can go on indefinitely. THEY'RE WRONG!!!!
Cultural Bias
I know this can be a hard pill for some to swallow, but there are cultural groups in this country that highly value fat women. But that's not just in America. There are whole countries and islands with similar beliefs, that fat women are are only beautiful because they're fat. Yes, their women die young. Yes, Their women have high blood pressure. Yes, their women suffer blindness caused by diabetes at relatively young ages. Yes, their women are in severe pain and can barely walk. But they don't make that mental connection between fat and health problems and death.
Family Habits
Children learn what constitutes portions from their parents. Mom makes food, mom dishes up the food, mom tells kids to clean their plates, and dad often follows up with punishment if kids don't finish everything on the plate. If mom and dad are fat, kids end up fat too, often enough.
In addition, mom and dad are the ones who buy the food. Sometimes parents buy horrible food choices the children demand, perhaps partly because the kids are making a scene in the store and the parents don't like to be embarrassed.
Emotional Response to Negative Attention
People often assume that if you call someone bad names, accost them on the street and tell them what you think they should do to lose the weight, embarrass them, insult them, etc., that they will respond with a positive reaction. This never works. Granted, some people may lose weight, but mostly the ways they use to lose weight to never be embarrassed again usually run along the lines of doing something so unhealthy that they still end up dying from some type of eating disorder. Most people don't respond positively to negativity. Like the old saying goes: you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Insulting and embarrassing someone usually ends up with them becoming more entrenched in their bad eating habits, and eating even more. Depression does that. Attacking someone with insults and embarrassment will make them depressed.
Sedate Lives
As a nation, America has become a very sedate culture. We live our lives in front of the television, in front of a computer, playing video games, and other activities that require no physical activity.
Inadequate Sleep
The human body needs sleep in order to recuperate from the previous day. It's too easy to tell someone to get more sleep when you don't know why they're having trouble getting sleep. The cause could be anything from having a chronically sick family member, to something psychologically keeping the person awake, to poor bedding, to being in pain from lying down. And so many others. Part of the way the body works to lose weight relies on getting enough sleep.
Sleep Apnea and other Things That Hinder Breathing
The human body is a biological furnace. Fire requires ignition, fuel and some sort of gas in order to burn. In the human body, ignition is provided by conception. Food is fuel. Air is gas. When all three of these are in place, the body burns calories. You cut off food and the person dies. You cut down the food intake too much and caloric burn reduces. You cut off air and the person dies. You cut down on air and all kinds of bad things happen, including reduced caloric burn. Ignition may begin with conception but it is maintained and adjusted by the thyroid. Many people suffer from sleep apnea and other breathing problems. However, the same as with under-active thyroids, sleep apnea is very under-diagnosed. Most people go many years as I did not knowing they have this problem. Yes, I knew I snored. I did not know this could be a signal that I was having trouble breathing. I did not know that for short periods of time, I was not breathing at all. The longer you go without breathing, the more accustomed you brain becomes to that lack of oxygen.
As a matter of fact, on that subject, there is a gland in the brain that monitors the level of blood oxygen. When you stop breathing, this gland triggers something to wake you up so you can start breathing again. People who suffer sleep apnea generally have trouble getting to a deep enough level of sleep that allows genuine rest. That's because you keep waking up every two minutes to start breathing again. The normal blood oxygen level for a healthy person is measured in points of 90 to 100. If you walk into a hospital, and they test your blood oxygen, and it reads 89, they shove an oxygen mask onto your face.
When a person goes too long with sleep apnea, this gland becomes accustomed to the lower levels of oxygen. It waits longer before it triggers the function of waking you up. Yes, you get to sleep longer, but then your oxygen dips lower. Like I said, really bad things happen when you have low blood oxygen. For one, you start to hallucinate! You start seeing things out of the corners of your eyes that aren't there. You hear voices that may not really be there. Your mood swings start taking dangerous curves, as does your driving, assuming that at your weight you can still fit behind the wheel of a car. You start acting ...... oh, how do I describe it...... psychotic! Schizophrenic! Bipolar!
When I was first sent to the hospital for the initial blood tests my doctor ordered, the nurse started with the blood oxygen. She did it the hard way, being considered the more reliable form of the test. She put the needle in my wrist to take blood instead of putting the little plastic monitor on the end of my finger. Taking blood requires sending it to a lab and they can't see the results until the lab sends it back. After taking all the blood samples and expressing them to the lab, I started to leave the hospital. With all the pain I was in, it took a long time to walk the distance from where the nurse was to the front door where my ride was waiting. I got almost all the way to the door when the nurse came running as fast as she could to catch up with me. She caught up and announced that my blood oxygen was 46. I did not know what that meant, so I must have had a glazed look on my face. She repeated that my blood oxygen was 46. I shrugged and told her I didn't know what that means. She answered "I've seen dead people with higher blood oxygen levels." It wasn't until later when I asked what normal was that I realized just how bad my oxygen level really was. I had less than half of "normal". They immediately slated me for a sleep study. Later, the technician admitted that I scared him with the length of time I would stop breathing.
Seriously, there are times when I want to kick the crotch of the doctor who called me a liar.
There may well be other causes too, but these, as I see them, are the main ones.
What bothers me most is all the times I tried to tell my doctors that I was really trying to lose weight and they didn't believe me. I tried to tell them something was wrong and they didn't believe me. It bothers me that they waited until I was 500 pounds before checking to see. Did they think it would be easy to come back from 500 pounds? Did they think that as a female, I wasn't worth the effort? Or did they think that as a fat female, I wasn't capable of telling the truth? I have lost about 100 pounds, but my stomach hangs down to my knees. My back aches from just trying to stand up. I often lose my balance and fall. Falling down on my knees has irreparably damaged my knees. I've been told I probably need knee replacement surgery. My feet feel like the bones are being crushed when I walk. My stomach skin is constantly infected because the sweat between my stomach and my legs never dries.
Then some bozo comes along and thinks the solution to my problems is insults and name-calling. Then somebody comes along on twitter and tells females that creating their own anorexia is the only way he'll date them.
It's too easy for people to think there's only one solution to helping or making someone lose weight, or that all people respond equally to the same nudges.
I remember once seeing an episode of "The Wonder Years" starring a very young Fred Savage. In the episode he was taking a math class. The boy played by Fred was having trouble understanding the algebraic concepts. When the boy asked for help, the teacher explained that each problem presents it's own solution. A friend was cheating. He thought he might cheat too. The teacher caught on and punished the first cheater, but used other methods to convince the boy played by Fred not to do the same. When the boy asked why he had not been punished as the first cheating boy had been, the teacher yet again replied that each problem presents it's own solution.
Each person is different and responds differently to what they encounter. Losing weight is harder for some than for others, but not easy for anyone. This makes it difficult for everyone. For everyone, each needs their own solution. It's not easy to find. It's going to take time, patience, effort, looking at the causes and being brutally honest at your own self-defeating actions and attitudes.
January 17, 2011
9:40 p.m. CST
