Please note: The use fo the word 'fat' here is not supposed to be emotive.

Me at my thinnest (yesterday) and fattest (2005)

It is widely accepted that if you have an eating disorder, your actions are somewhat beyond your conscious control. If you have an eating disorder you have psychological problems. It may be that you have other problems in life which are generally manifesting themselves through your eating patterns.

It may be that you are attempting to exercise some control in an environment where otherwise you feel you have none. You may be punishing yourself for something you feel you have done. Or something that was done to you.

You may feel worthless.

You may feel that you do not deserve to be healthy or vibrant or loved. You may be so full of self hatred that you push everyone around you to their limits to test their love for you.

You may be so warped in your thinking that you have an exaggerated impression of what your body looks like. It is likely that no matter how many people say nice things about the way you look or how loved you are for you, you struggle to accept what they say as the truth.

Your eating patterns may follow some vicious, self sabotaging cycle which if continued will ulitmately lead to severe health problems or even death.

Now, does any of this sound familiar to you? It certainly does to me and I have never been anorexic or bulimic. I have been overweight though. I have been obese.

Does anybody else find it strange that if you are desperately underweight, society and the medical profession reaches out to you, pities you, supports you.

However if you are desperately overweight you are deemed a self indulgent, lazy failure who lacks any self control over their eating behaviour. And unless you have some further complication such as diabetes, you are pretty much left to your own devices.

Hmmmm, it makes me pretty sad really. The number of blogs I have read on WW tell me that there is much more going on than simply the sins of greed and sloth.

I have been brought to tears by people's stories, I have certainly been brought to tears by my own. Some of the problems preceeded the weight gain. Others are a consequence of it. Many people are living a constant battle between themselves and within themselves and this serves to make them fatter.

Yet from society there is no empathy. There is no attempt to gain insight as to why some of these people are overweight due to their messed up psyches. In fact there is often the complete opposite. People thinking they are entitled to comment, advise or insult a person regarding their largeness. As if that is going to help.

It doesn't really cross people's minds that overeating can be an eating disorder too.

Now I am not saying everyone has "issues" and that is why they are fat. Nor am I saying that it should absolve them of responsibility for making healthy choices. I just wish there was a bit more understanding and help available, as there is for other eating disorders.

Everyone is searching for the answer, the magic bullet, the cure for the epidemic that is becoming obesity. Perhaps if there were more attempts at getting to the root of the psychological causes of somebody's overeating, more individuals would actually succeed in becoming the best, healthiest version of themselves they could be.

Just sayin'