Brenda L. Wolfe, Ph.D. The Obesity Braid

Unravel the Obesity Braid

Brenda L. Wolfe, Ph.D.

The past century has seen a cornucopia of weight loss products to tempt the overweight consumer. In 1912 we bought the Improved Reducing Corset to compress our waistline and extract our juices. Since then, we have binged on a vast assortment of diets and pills promising to shrink our bodies — but shrinking only our wallets. Billions of dollars lighter, we are now physically at our heaviest. Why? Why are we are fatter than ever when we have an infinite variety of low-calorie foods and “scientifically designed” weight loss plans? The answer is simple. We eat more energy (food) than we spend; and what determines how much we eat is the Obesity Braid.

In spite of commercial claims to the contrary, overeating is not the result of one particular problem. There is no single gene or metabolite, neither one allergy nor psychological state that causes us to become fat. Rather, there are three broad categories of circumstance that twine together to determine body size. There is our physical reality, our psychological life, and the world in which we live. These forces twist together like a braid to influence when, why, where, what, and how much we eat.

The Physical Strand

Each of us is born with a genetic link not only to our parents, but to our ancestors across the millennia. In fact, they bequeathed us the perfect design needed to thrive as hunter-gatherers, working hard for a food supply that was unpredictable and often nutritiously insufficient. The ancestors who survived to pass down their genes were the ones who took full advantage of food when it was available. One might say they were the founders of the Clean Plate Club — never sure when their next meal might be, they ate as much as they could of whatever was available, stopping only when the food ran out. Doing so ensured they had enough fuel on board to keep them alive until they found their next meal. Today, we call this pattern “binge eating” and it is no longer adaptive because food is no longer scarce. Hence, keeping our weight down in today’s world requires that we behave somewhat contrary to design. We must turn away from tantalizing tastes and smells when we have eaten amounts we “know” to be sufficient, even though our brain seems hard-wired to “want” more as long as it is available.

Our physical hard-wiring not only pushes us to eat whenever food is available, it also triggers us to eat in response to stress. Our ancestral environment pretty much had two main classes of stressor: we were either being attacked, in which case we fought or fled, or there was a food shortage, in which case food-seeking was adaptive. This aspect of the physical strand of obesity gets particularly tangled up with the psychological strand.

The Psychological Strand

The psychological strand of the Obesity Braid encompasses everything our experiences have taught us — from early lessons that delicious flavors soothe skinned knees and hurt feelings, to current stressors and pressures that drive us to seek comfort. Each time we take solace in cup of hot chocolate or freshly baked bread, we are responding to our physical (mind/body) hard-wiring and reinforcing the mental connection between pain-relief and food. Over a lifetime of such learning experiences, reaching for food when we experience discomfort becomes automatic. We often find ourselves eating without having made the conscious decision to do so.

The Environmental Strand

How much we ultimately eat is influenced, lastly, by our environment. Our forefathers who walked long distances to find naturally-occurring food could eat without concern about calorie intake. However, we live in a time and place in which food is more abundant and calorically-dense than it has ever been in the history of mankind. Added food ingredients that pack huge flavor and calories into our foods, combined with the easy accessibly of cheap food, makes the world a booby-trap for our physical and psychological eating triggers.

Unraveling the Braid

The three strands of the Obesity Braid are tightly interwoven. Even if a pill could change our genetic heritage, we would still face the psychological pressures that drive learned behavior and the environmental minefields of available high-calorie food. Psychotherapy to change our basic psychology (were such therapy available, which it is not), would still leave us with physical vulnerability to environmental pressures to overeat. Unraveling the braid means learning to manage our natural physical and psychological tendencies, and structure our environment to play to our strengths rather than vulnerabilities. As a starting point in your journey away from obesity, here are three changes you can begin today:

1. Accept that your body will not always provide the best signal for when you have had enough to eat. While it is not a good idea, for health or weight control, to leave yourself physically hungry at the end of a meal, it is important to differentiate physical hunger from automatic eating. Educate yourself about healthy portion sizes and eat slowly enough to recognize your subsiding hunger as you consume those amounts.

2. Explore different ways to sooth emotional distress. While eating is a primary source of pleasure, there are many other things you can do to feel good. Any activity that releases tension, distracts you from distressing thoughts, and/or just plain feels good is a healthy alternative to comfort eating.

3. While there may not be much you can personally do to clean up the junk food in our communities, there is plenty you can do to improve your personal environment. Rid your car and work-place of food; you should be driving when driving and working when working. If it is time to eat, go to a Designated Eating Place such as your kitchen or the cafeteria — that is where food should be stored and eaten. Rid your living spaces of unhealthy foods so that when you do find yourself rummaging for a bite, your choices are health-enhancing.

Reprinted from Rio Rancho Magazine, 2006.