If Your Parents Tried to Fix Your Overeating

It was damaging if your parent tried to fix your overeating or criticized your eating or weight, without self-reflecting on what ways they may have been creating the problem in you.

If your parents tried to fix your overeating or junk food tendencies, or were critical of them, this may have been an extra layer of damage you received regarding eating.

Every child who overeats does so for a reason; it is not a fluke, it is not a personality trait or a lack of willpower trait.

It is also untrue that children cannot be trusted to eat balanced and inherently want junk food.

Children overeat because of a multitude of potential reasons, all of which come from their environment and the adults they spend the most time with.

These reasons may include:

• The child's family life does not feel good for them in some way, and these issues are not actively being worked on by the adults and caregivers, and the child feels they cannot cope with how bad it feels (this can happen in families that many consider "normal" and there is no overt abuse)

• Emotional suppression is being modeled by the parents and directly or indirectly taught to the child

• There is an imbalanced, hyper focus on having perfect bodies and perfect eating which creates worth-related emotions in the child around food and body

And there are other factors.

Many people look back on their parents' attempts to help them lose weight or eat healthier and tell themselves that this was reasonable because indeed, they were acting in an imbalanced way and did need to change.

However, if the parent is not spending serious time in deep self-reflection as to how they are personally creating situations that feel bad for the child or how they are modelling emotional suppression, then all attempts to fix the issue are incomplete approaches.

It often ends up in the child feeling they are a problem to be fixed and they are inherently weak with no explanation.

This belief can continue into adulthood and seriously impair the process of healing overeating, and in fact, ultimately contribute to it more due to anger, rebellion, or self-blame.

As adults in the process of healing, we need to understand the impact of having a parent who was fixing or critical without self-reflection. How did that feel? What impact did that have on your understanding of why you overeat?

Photo by Edward Howell via Unsplash