The other day I had the TV tuned to a marathon of My 600 Pound Life and wondered at first how these people allowed themselves to get that way, even knowing it was life-threatening for them. In most cases, the person experienced some sort of deep emotional trauma early in their life and turned to food as a comfort device.
Food can be an addiction as bad as any other. Eating brings feelings of comfort and pleasure, which are hard to give up. The food industry knows this well, which is why they load up foods with sugar and artificial flavours to make them more appealing. Even those "diet" or "fat-free" items aren't much better for you than the genuine ones.
I have several friends who are or have been extremely overweight due to various reasons: a sedentary lifestyle, chronic illness, or poor attitude toward their health in general. Two of them elected for gastric bypass surgery and drastic lifestyle changes in order to get their weight under control. Two others are using medication and monitoring their diets carefully.
Sadly, one friend has shown little progress in getting healthy even after suffering a heart attack at age 23 - anxiety issues are blamed for the lack of drive. Anyone who attempts to talk about it gets blocked. I worry for this friend sometimes.
I've been lucky. All my adult life my weight has been between 125 and 130 pounds and I usually make good food choices. That's not to say I don't indulge once in a while - dark chocolate is my particular vice. However as I've gotten older I've become less active, which isn't good at all. In fact, one of my New Year resolutions was to get off my butt and exercise more.
Just as soon as I can kick this cold out.
I am convinced that genetics plays a role too. Sounds like you won the lottery!
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