Compulsive hoarding on Dr. Phil

Today’s episode of Dr. Phil focused on people with compulsive hoarding issues. The first guest on the show (and by the way, for the record, I rarely watch the show - I liked him better when he was on Oprah) was a young man with an enormous collection of Star Wars items. He had apparently spent $200,000 building up this collection and his house was filled with the stuff. His wife (understandably) was fed up and wanted Dr. Phil to wake him up. He even admitted that if Star Wars didn’t exist, there would be no reason to be alive.

You have to ask yourself what void this guy is literally trying to fill with all this stuff. There are a lot of reasons that people keep get attached to their stuff, from sentimental reasons to the fear that if they throw something away, they might need it again someday. People collect things because it gives them a sense of safety, belonging, or identity. But in many cases of compulsive hoarding, which is a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, it wouldn’t be unfair to say that the “stuff” is a symbol for something that the person feels they’re lacking in their life. So to fill up that feeling of emptiness, they collect and/or keep things that have some special meaning to them, instead of satisfying that need in a healthier way.

In some ways, compulsive eating and emotional eating are similar to compulsive hoarding. In the case of eating, the food represents something that the person feels they are missing, like love, comfort, or a sense of pleasure. And in a very literal way, the extra weight is the extra “stuff” that the person is carrying around. Obviously, this type of behaviour varies, from having a couple of extra pounds and being a bit of a packrat, to being morbidly obese or suffering from the most extreme forms of compulsive hoarding. But wherever you might fall on that continuum, ask yourself: what hunger are you trying to fill?

Book review: Fat Girl by Judith Moore

Although many people struggle with their weight, few have been overweight all their lives. This book tells us exactly what it’s like to have been the “Fat Girl.” A memoir written by Judith Moore, it’s a haunting story that goes deep into the pain, shame, humiliation, and suffering of a person labelled as fat. Although she claims from the get-go that this isn’t a sob story, nor is it an exploration of why she had a weight problem, but from reading her story it is clear she suffered from an emotional hunger.

Rejected by her mother before she was even born, and abandoned by her father soon after, she did not get a good start in life. To make matters worse, she inherited her father’s body type, a man who was obese for much of his life. Her petite mother, whose dreams of becoming a famous singer were interrupted by Judith’s arrival, was repulsed not just by her daughter’s figure so opposite to her own, but by the fact that she reminded her of her ex-husband. Judith suffered terrible physical and psychological abuse at the hands of her mother, whose own mother was a difficult and critical woman. Her lack of love, warmth and acceptance led her to seek comfort from food. However, she also learned to hate food, as her mother put her on one failed diet after another. At times, her hunger was so severe that she began chewing on her own fingers to soothe herself.

As a child, she was teased mercilessly and developed few friendships. This rejection only led to more pain and isolation, and she never developed the social skills necessary for happy relationships. Her childhood was lonely, empty and she was filled with longing for love and acceptance. Her emotional hunger was bigger than her appetite.

Her weight was really just the outward manifestation of her emotional hunger. Partly due to genetics, but also partly a way to cope with her unhappiness, emptiness and need for human connection. This poignant story cuts straight to the heart of what it feels like to carry extra weight, both on the inside and the outside, all your life.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about how a child struggles with weight. It can be difficult to read, as the author’s style is very direct, dealing with raw emotion. It will leave you feeling sad, angry and shocked. But I promise you will never look at another “fat girl” the same way again.

Can being depressed shorten your lifespan?

I recently came across a disturbing statistic. The World Health Organization (WHO) has studied a number of factors that reduce both a person’s lifespan as well as their quality of life. The latter statistic is termed Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), which is basically the number of years of quality life that get taken off because of one factor or another. They calculate these DALYs for each of the different parts of the world, and as you would expect, various diseases like tuberculosis and HIV are near the top of the list for developing nations. You would think that the so-called lifestyle diseases, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, would top the list in developing nations. However, you’d be wrong.

Depression is the #1 disease accounting for the greatest number of quality years of life lost in North America. In fact, on average, it accounts for 8.0 DALYs, or years of quality life lost due to the disability caused by the disease. This number is greater for North America than for any other part of the world. And no other country lists it as their top factor. I was astounded not just by the fact that depression topped the list in North America, but by the number of quality years it takes off the average depressed person’s life. Often people think of lifespan as being the number of years they live, but few people consider how many of those years are spent feeling healthy, happy and well. What good is it to live for 100 years if only 60 of those are healthy?

It’s time to start thinking more about quality of life and not longevity. If you or someone you know suffers from depression, this statistic should be enough reason to get out there and get some help. People don’t hesitate to seek help for other health problems, but rarely do so when it comes to their mental health. In fact, it takes on average 5 years for someone to seek help when they’re depressed. All of these factors contribute to the reason that depression is such a personal and social burden (at least in terms of DALYs). And if we factor in people who struggle with their weight and/or eating habits, the likelihood of having other related lifestyle diseases goes up.  This would account for even more DALYs, or years lost. Get a handle on your eating, and get a handle on what’s pushing you to eat (often feelings of depression), and not only will you feel better now, but you just may live longer too.

Drop the rope

For anyone who works, lives or deals with teenagers on a regular basis, you know how easily a power struggle can creep up on you. When I first started working with teens, this completely baffled me. I thought I was young and hip enough for them to consider me to be on their side (what a delusion!), but I would consistently find myself getting into these struggles that I knew I couldn’t win. I had a conversation with a colleague about this and she gave me a tip that would completely change how I approached my work with them.

When you find yourself in a power struggle, caught in a game of tug of war, just drop the rope. If you drop the rope, nobody wins and nobody loses. Don’t try to reason with them, don’t try to bribe, don’t try to force anything. Just let it go. State your point on move on to more productive things. When I tried this approach, it worked amazingly well. Instead of wasting time arguing a moot point, I focused on what was really going on and how to help the teen move past that.

I later realized this approach works with more than just teenagers. It also works with your relationship with yourself. How often do we get stuck in a tug of war between our emotions and our reason? Our emotions are telling us to do one thing (eat that delicious piece of pie!) and our reason is telling us another (you just finished dinner, you’re full, you don’t really need that piece of pie). The struggle is exhausting. What would happen if you just dropped the rope?

When you let go of the struggle between your emotions and your reason, you begin to live more genuinely and peacefully. You listen to yourself, and what you really want. You free up energy to focus on other, more important things. So you eat a sliver of the pie, you savour and enjoy it, and that part of you that wants to make you feel guilty for giving in takes a backseat. Then you move on to more important things.

What does it really mean to be fit?

I’ve recently started getting into yoga, for the first time in many years. I took a class once when I was an undergrad and although I diligently attended classes, I never really enjoyed it (the fact that the class was downtown at the ungodly hour of 7:30 AM might have had something to do with it). Now maybe that I’m older, I find myself patient enough to enjoy its slow, meditative pace, although I definitely have a lot to learn. However, it’s gotten me thinking a lot about what it means to be fit.

I remember reading somewhere once that most people think that to be physically fit is to possess either good strength or endurance. In other words, being able to lift a lot of weight or have shapely muscles (strength), or else be able to run for a long time or have good cardiovascular fitness (endurance), is enough to be considered a fit person. However, true fitness also includes balance and flexibility. What good is it to be able to run or lift weights if you aren’t flexible? Although most people do incorporate some stretching into their routines, balance is by far the most neglected part of fitness. This is why elderly people are so prone to falling. Just like developing good musculature, good balance can also be developed. One of the best ways to develop balance and flexibility is through yoga.

Yoga also increases your sense of self-awareness, which makes yoga an ideal mind-body exercise. It takes a lot of practice and discipline, but that’s the beauty of it. It’s hard, and it can be frustrating, but I find that it’s helping me to develop more tolerance with myself. It teaches you to be patient, and also increases your awareness of your body. Because I’m becoming more aware of my body, I’m also becoming more aware of what I put into it and why. For anyone who struggles with emotional eating (including myself!), having fuller self-awareness can help you make better, more conscious choices about why and how much you eat. And because I’m more in tune with my body, I also find myself wanting to exercise more, whereas going to the gym is usually something of a struggle. This is why yoga is so good for anyone who struggles with food or body image issues - it targets both the body and the mind, which is exactly what I do in my therapy practice. You can never really separate the two, because they’re so intimately intertwined.

Try it. Be patient, give it a fair try, and see what it can do for you. You might be surprised.

What are the Top 10 signs you might be an emotional eater?

In my previous post, I talked about the definition of emotional eating. In this post, I outline how to identify the signs that you might be an emotional eater. You may recognize yourself in some, many or all of these. Read on to discover the top 10 signs you might be struggling with emotional eating.

Top 10 signs you’re an emotional eater:

1. Do you reach for certain comfort foods whenever you feel sad, depressed, lonely or bored? You may have certain foods that you know are sure to make you feel better, like sweets, pasta, chips, or chocolate. Whenever the slightest feeling of sadness or boredom sets in, you immediately feed it with these comfort foods.

2. Do you reward yourself with food for doing something hard or challenging? You’ve completed a major project, finished your last exam, made it through that terrible meeting with your boss, or spent half the day cleaning up your office. What better way to pat yourself on the back than with a special treat (sushi is one of my personal favourites!).

3. After a hard day, do you treat yourself to your favourite foods? You were late for work, you forgot some important papers at home, the microwave was broken at lunch, and you didn’t complete nearly half of the work you were supposed to. On your way home, you stop and pick up some pizza, because no way are you cooking and besides, you deserve it.

4. Do you eat in order to push away feelings of anxiety or stress? You’re nervous about that upcoming party for 12 you’ve planned, or there’s a major deadline looming over you. To cope, you find yourself snacking on food all day long.

5. Are you preoccupied with food? You often think about food throughout the day, sometimes planning your next meal before you’ve even finished eating your first. You imagine what you’ll be eating for lunch or dinner, and the anticipation keeps you going until mealtime. On your way to the grocery store, you make a mental list of all the tasty treats you’ll put into your shopping cart.

6. Do you find yourself craving certain foods, and can’t rest easy until you satisfy your craving? All of a sudden, you get a terrible craving for a Krispy Kreme doughnut. Not a regular doughnut, not Tim Horton’s doughnut, but a Krispy Kreme doughnut. No substitute will do, and it keeps popping into your head until you feel like you’re going to go crazy. To make it stop, you’ll go out of your way to get that doughnut (or a dozen).

7. Do you use food as a way to express your anger? You’ve gotten into yet another argument with your spouse (maybe over your weight!), and to blow off steam, you crunch on some chips. You might even be doing this as a way to get back at your spouse; rather than talk things out, it’s easier to just ignore each other and distract yourself with food.

8. Will you eat something just because it’s one of your favourites, even if you’re not hungry? You’re visiting your parents, and your mom has cooked up a big batch of your favourite lasagne. You’ve already eaten, but how can you say no? Besides, she’ll be insulted if you don’t at least try it.

9. Do you sometimes put food in your mouth without realizing it? You take out a bag of chips, and before you know it, you’ve already reached the bottom of the bag. This kind of mindless eating takes you away from your body’s true hunger signals, and can lead you down the path of a destructive pattern of emotional eating.

10. Do you feel stressed, angry or guilty after eating? You’ve done it again. You’ve polished off that whole box of cookies, and now you have a stomachache. Why can’t you just control yourself? You start to worry about what the scale will say tomorrow. You don’t understand why you do this to yourself, and the guilt just makes you want to eat more.

If you see yourself in many or all of these scenarios, you’re probably an emotional eater. You may see yourself in some of these sometimes, but that doesn’t mean that you have a problem. We all use food to comfort or reward ourselves sometimes. But the more often you engage in these behaviours, and the more they control your life, the more of a problem you have. Be sure to check out my emotional eating quiz in my resources section or by clicking here.

What is emotional eating?

Emotional eating is a recurrent pattern of eating in response to your feelings, not physical hunger. It can take the form of reaching for a tub of ice cream when you’re sad, a bag of chips when you’re anxious, chocolate when you’re happy, surrounding yourself with your favourite foods when you’re lonely, or compulsively eating everything in sight when you’re bored. The key is that your eating habits are tied to your emotions, not to the signals your body is sending you. Somehow, the connection between eating and nourishing your body has become lost.

It’s no surprise that we connect food to emotional well-being. From the day we’re born, our first experiences of being loved and cared for come from the closeness we feel when we’re being fed. This connection is very strong, and is later reinforced by the messages we get from our loved ones. Food is intimately tied to celebration, from birthdays to weddings (think of that show, “I do, Let’s eat!"). We may have been comforted with food early on, from chicken soup when we had a cold to a chocolate bar when we felt down. We may have also been taught to eat everything on our plate, or witnessed a family member struggle with emotional eating. All of these sent us the message that food is somehow about more than just eating for survival.

Everyone uses food for emotional reasons sometimes, but emotional eating results from developing an unhealthy relationship with food. Almost everyone has a “go-to” food when they’re stressed out, or has a tendency to overeat around the holidays. But when turning to food to cope with unpleasant emotions or situations becomes a regular occurrence, it can be a problem. Food is used to comfort yourself, cope with stress, or relieve feelings of boredom and loneliness. Food is seen as the ultimate pick-me-up, but also as a source of angst, as overeating can lead to feelings of helplessness and guilt. All of these are signs that you have an unhealthy relationship with food.

It can be very hard to break away from this pattern of emotional eating because it’s so easy to turn to food. Turning to food gives you instant comfort, and this feeling can be very powerful. What’s more, there is probably a biological link between certain comfort foods (especially those high in carbohydrates, like sweets and chips) and the brain chemicals that are correlated with elevated moods (like serotonin). Finally, because eating shifts the focus away from feelings and situations that are too difficult to face, it prevents you from having to deal with them. As a result, emotional eating becomes powerfully reinforced, and over time you can come to rely on it as your primary coping mechanism.

So what can you do about it? First, you have to recognize what your triggers are. Are there any specific feelings or situations that send you running to the fridge? Is there a connection between the kinds of foods you turn to and your feelings? Keeping a diary can help. You also need to find other ways of coping, like finding a healthy outlet for your emotions, or using problem solving techniques for situations that keep coming up.  Talking to a friend, working out your problems, or learn stress management techniques can all help.  You can break free from this destructive pattern!