Now, about real psychological issues. On one list on which I participated for a long time, the subject of childhood abuse came up and a surprisingly large number of people, mostly female, but some men too, had been abused as children. I don't know if there's been any research to see if there is any link between childhood abuse and obesity, but I bet there is one. But of course, that is apocryphal. Just my gut suspicion.

America is a food-centric society these days. If you doubt this, watch the ads on TV. Count how many ads there are for food in a given hour. I never really noticed it until after surgery when I felt absolutely bombarded with ads for pizza, burgers, fried chicken, ribs, Italian food, soda, beer ... and more and more. For a while it made me crazy. Now it just makes me queasy. I look at ads with happy (thin!) people scarfing down chunks of pizza and fried chicken and all I can see is grease. Yuck.

Last I heard, the average woman in this country wears a size 16 ... AND our sizes are MUCH bigger than they were 30 years ago. If you doubt that, go buy some clothing made during the 50s based on your current size and you'll discover that they won't fit. Americans are MUCH bigger ... in every way ... than they used to be. We are, on the whole, overweight. Some of us are just a little overweight, some much more so. How many restaurants sell themselves on serving big portions, eh? The morbidly obese are not exactly their singular target audience, so eating a lot must be a pretty prevalent phenomenon. So maybe ... just maybe ... we who have been or still are morbidly obese somehow think that we have ever so much more baggage than Normal People, whoever they may be.

I have a theory. It is unscientific, unproven, and as such is merely my subjective thoughts on a clearly delicate subject.

I think most people overeat some of the time. A lot of people overeat most of the time. Some people overeat all of the time. I don't think that psychology accounts for it, except for a small percentage. We live in a society where food is plentiful and cheap ... where fatty, rich food tastes really good. Food is a social function. We get together and we eat. Because we can eat more than we need, we do. In societies where food is scarce, people eat less. In societies where overeating is anti-social, people are -- on the average -- thinner. Some of us are genetically pre-disposed to gain weight and for whatever reasons, are also more inclined to not lose it. That's why it's so common to see multiple siblings in various sizes, even though they've all had essentially the same upbringing. I have two siblings. My brother is overweight, but not fat. My sister is thin. I was fat, now thin. My father was fat, lost it all, kept it off for the rest of his life (50 years to date). My mother never let herself get fat, but she had the discipline of a Marine drill instructor. If she gained five pounds, she immediate increased her exercise, decreased her intake, and lost it. Of her five siblings, 3 were heavy, 3 thin. In my dad's family, the women were fat, the men thin, except for my father who was fat then thin. Does this prove anything? I dunno. Does it?

Many of us have really bad eating habits. I'm not sure that bad eating habits are quite the same as Serious Psychological Issues.

I think we beat ourselves up a lot. I think we incorporated other peoples' judgments of us into our opinions of ourselves. I think that because we feel that we have somehow failed, that we are more inclined to fail.

Whether it's ghrelin levels, sociological conditioning, childhood trauma, low self esteem, some combination of the preceding or whatever, WLS works better than any other solution for the disease of morbid obesity. The rate of long term success for any traditional diet program is poor. And for those of us with complicated medical issues, dieting success percentages approach zero on a close order.

And finally, I find it interesting in a society where the average woman is pretty hefty that somehow, those who are more than a little hefty come in for so much abuse. Is it because the merely overweight amongst us feel somehow better because they aren't as big as we are? And when we have surgery and lose the weight, why do so many of them get so hostile? Maybe they feel a little threatened, eh? Maybe even jealous?

Maybe by the time the next generation grows up, there will be better, less drastic, solutions to overweight. In the meantime, this one works.

Marilyn

Marilyn Armstrong

Open RNY 3/4/02

Starting weight 258lb., current 110lb. (more or less) at 5'3"