Being Overweight and Playing Small in Life

Having extra weight can be about feeling like we must play small and give others superiority.

For some people, having extra weight, and the overeating that can create it, can be about a feeling like they must play small in life, and that they should feel inferior and make others feel superior.

Sometimes this comes from a competitive mother who wants to feel, in her perception, prettier and thinner than her daughter, which results in the daughter feeling she must give her mother this superiority and not threaten that position.

It can also come from a dynamic with parents that has nothing to do with body image specifically, but rather that there is another kind of power, control and superiority dynamic.

The family may want you to feel like you're a bit of a failure and can't get things together, and they are more together and they know better.

If you no longer struggled with extra weight and with food, the family may feel like this superiority/inferiority and power dynamic is now threatened.

Who are you to feel good about yourself? Who are you to feel confident?

This dynamic can play out with parents who insist on you eating even if you're not hungry, or bypass your requests for balanced meals and urge you to eat junk food instead.

However, this power and superiority dynamic can even be the underlying truth in families who appear supportive of weight loss.

I have had many clients who have families who seem to want to help their adult child lose weight and be healthier, but in reality the entire thing is all about the parent getting to feeling like they know better and are in control and power, while infantilizing their adult child to their own benefit.

And if this person actually lost the weight permanently and no longer struggled with food, this parent would be severely threatened.

So it is important for anyone who resonates with this particular potential issue, to examine who you might actually be pleasing, by having overeating or extra weight.

Photo by Amy Humphries via Unsplash