Oprah Winfrey is an admirable woman. She’s done so much for so many, and is an incredible role model to millions of people. She’s beautiful, successful, intelligent, caring and an inspiration to us all, which is why her ongoing struggle with her weight is so saddening. She has access to the very best trainers, nutritionists, coaches and chefs. She has the time and resources to research the subject, plan healthy meals and work out using the most up-to-date methods available. She has the support of dozens of people who truly care about her, yet her weight has been see-sawing up and down her entire adult life.
She certainly has some good insight into herself, and she’s spoken candidly about the traumas of her past. Still, this awareness hasn’t helped her in her struggle with over-eating. She’s gone on diets, fasts and exercise plans, but there’s one thing she hasn’t done in this quest to lose weight and keep it off. I believe that there is a way for her to get off the weight see-saw, once and for all. During the years that I’ve been working with women who over-eat, it’s become evident that dieting is a practice that’s doomed to fail because it doesn’t address even one of the three major aspects of a woman’s over-eating disorder. These are: obsessions about food and weight; compulsive eating behaviors and a psychological attachment to the weight. Let me explain:
Over-eating is driven by unconscious psychological forces which are working toward a dual goal; that of achieving emotional healing and self-nurturing. Over-eating, like all addictions, comes out of a drive to resolve the hurts or inadequacies of the past. It’s meant to replace the love and care that was lacking during childhood and to repair the emotional wounds which have occurred as a result of experiencing childhood traumas or neglect. Unfortunately, it’s an ineffective method of achieving these goals.
The unconscious mind is rigid and inflexible and once it latches onto a particular solution for an emotional problem, it won’t let go (until the conscious mind learns a new technique). Because food was the first, and perhaps the only thing that gave her soothing and relief, the woman believes deep down that eating is the only way her problems will be solved. A woman begins to obsess about food because of internal confusion. Unconsciously, she’s convinced that eating is the solution to her emotional needs, but consciously, she doesn’t experience it as helpful.
No matter how much she eats, she doesn’t feel any more healed or filled with love than she did before she started Food remains at the forefront of her consciousness as she waits for it to do what it’s supposed to do, and hopes that eventually, it will. Women who over-eat also begin to obsess about their weight. No-one wants to be heavy but of course, the more a woman eats, the more she gains. This creates an inner conflict between the unconscious part that’s driven to overeat and the conscious part that doesn’t want to be overweight.
The woman obsesses about the need to lose weight; about what she just ate, what she wants to eat and what she’s not supposed to eat. She feels helpless, which makes her obsess even more. It’s exhausting. These obsessions consume a lot of time and energy, and can make the over-eater’s world very small. When a woman’s attention is narrowly focused on food and weight, she doesn’t pursue the kinds of activities which might bring real happiness and which might actually be healing and nurturing for her.
The second component of over-eating is the compulsive aspect. A woman is compelled to eat by a psychological survival mechanism which drives her to deal with her emotional issues. The need for love and healing looms so large in the unconscious mind that the urge to eat can be overwhelming and irresistible. No matter how much she eats, though, the woman doesn’t experience any significant relief from her inner pain, nor find fulfillment for her unmet longings. This failure spurs the compulsive behavior onward, driving her to eat even more, because the rigid unconscious mind is convinced that eventually she’ll eat enough to achieve her aims.
The final aspect of the over-eating and weight problem is a woman’s psychological attachment to the extra weight. Some women gain weight to feel “safe” in the world, believing that this physical barrier might prevent further emotional or physical hurts from occurring. A woman might also fear that she’s unlovable or incompetent and will use the extra weight as a scapegoat for the potential failures in her relationships or in the workplace. She thinks to herself, “It’s not me they don’t like; it’s the fat.”
Women with a history of physical or sexual abuse have a stronger attachment to the weight than anyone else. In these cases, the young child feels helpless in the face of the trauma. Today, as an adult, she’s convinced that she needs a “buffer zone” of weight in order to be safe from future assaults. She’ll never be able to keep off any weight she might lose until she finds another way to feel safe in the world.
Obviously, not every woman with an over-eating or weight problem has suffered from severe childhood trauma or neglect. What all overweight women seem to have in common, though, is some lack of love, attention or protection when they were growing up. Usually, the degree to which their eating is out of control is a reflection of the severity of the problems they experienced while little. I wouldn’t dream of speculating about Oprah’s particular issues around eating and weight, but when I see such an otherwise intelligent, talented and successful woman so stuck in this area of her life, one thing seems clear: it appears that she hasn’t addressed at least one of the above aspects of this problem.
A woman can lose large amounts of weight simply by the exercise of will-power. Women are very strong and resourceful, organized and disciplined. They can often succeed at achieving the health and fitness goals they set for themselves. Still, if a woman has a psychological need to be heavy; if she hasn’t let go of her obsessions with food or is powerfully compelled to overeat, it’s unlikely that she’ll be able to lose weight and permanently keep it off. If she does, she will remain obsessed with what she eats and with her body size, and she’ll transfer her compulsions to compulsive food restriction. I’ve seen these things happen too many times.
So what is Oprah to do? Not to be presumptuous but I believe that the answer is most likely the same one I give to all the women I work with: deal with the three components of this problem in a meaningful way. I wrote my book, “Never Diet Again” for intelligent, capable women like Oprah; women who are successful in many areas of their lives but who are still unable to overcome their eating and weight problem. If you are one of these women, you must have tried every diet imaginable, and I’ll bet that every one of them has failed.
If you’re like the overweight women I work with, you probably feel anguish over not having been able to find the key that will unlock the door to your freedom. Your frustration and despair can transform into relief and happiness, though, because the key to solving this problem is within your grasp. Through working with women who overeat, I’ve discovered a simple, reasonable method of conquering over-eating, once and for all. Rather than using food for emotional healing, you must face, grieve and let go of the hurts and losses of the past. Then, you need to learn how to give yourself the love, nurturing and protection you were deprived of when you were growing up.
Oprah and women like her don’t need to keep embarking on diets which are never going to work. Instead of being trapped forever in the prison of obsessions, compulsive eating and psychological attachment to the weight, you can take hold of the key that’s being offered to you right now, turn it in the lock and walk through the door to freedom.
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