If You Weren’t Abused, but You Still Overeat

It isn’t just overt abuse in childhood that creates overeating. It can be created by dynamics that people consider “normal” or “not a big deal”.

People often ask me,

"I wasn't abused as a child, so why do I overeat?"

Most of the clients I work with in healing overeating did not have overt abuse in their family.

We often assume that it is only people who what we consider significant trauma, who have an understandable explanation for their compulsive eating.

And while overt abuse is at the heart of the explanation for many people's food addictions, it is important to understand that is not the only possibility.

People who didn't have any overt abuse whatsoever also have valid explanations for their overeating, and even in those cases, it does indeed go back to childhood.

Here are some examples for you:

If your dad worked a lot because times were hard when you were a kid, you might have felt unloved. Even if as an adult you can see that your dad was just trying to provide, your 4-year old brain and soul had no ability to see through adult eyes and simply felt unloved and rejected, and turned to food to fill that void. This will still be playing out with food even though you may see your dad differently as an adult.

If your mom was a bit of a controller -- nothing crazy, but one of those people who needed to have some control all the time -- this is a frustrating experience for most kids. A young child with an even slightly controlling parent will feel anger at the oppression and restriction of this experience. And if you weren't allowed to get angry about this, you might have used, and still use food, to suppress any anger you have in life.

If your parents were stoic and what society views as "strong" in that they didn't show any fear or sadness, you would have absorbed the message that fear and sadness are not to be felt. As an adult, when you get fear or sadness triggered, you're likely to overeat.

There are countless more examples.

We can develop overeating from dynamics in what many in society consider to be a normal childhood. It can happen in families with no overt abuse and where the person does not feel they're traumatized.

If you weren't abused, please don't feel like you're an anomaly and you don't have a legitimate explanation for your compulsions with food. You do! It's just a matter of examining things more deeply and looking at more of the subtleties in your childhood than you've examined before.

Do you identify with this? Do you feel like your childhood was normal and have you ever felt confused as to why you overeat?

Photo by Evi T via Unsplash