The author discusses the symbolism of obesity in different psychosocial contexts.
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Internal conflicts
Food is very often used to express emotions. Even at an early stage in life, a child may experience situations where parents show interest, love and acceptance through feeding. This happens, for example, when, due to an overload of work, a lack of knowledge or skills, or due to their own emotional difficulties, parents do not give their child enough time and attention, do not talk to them, do not show affection. Instead, they buy sweets or prepare his favourite dish from time to time. Food then becomes a symbol of positive emotions. In adulthood too, people often resort to this form of dealing with their feelings. When, for example, they feel anger, sadness, fear, joy or simply bored, they spontaneously reach for something to eat and feel relief. This is because they associate a particular food or food in general with certain memories or experiences, although sometimes they are not aware of this at all.
Especially when the feeling of hunger persists, regardless of the food eaten, it is worth including psychotherapy in the treatment of obesity. Some forms of it help to access inner experiences, fears, conflicts and to find positive strength in them.
Relationship between body and psyche
Life experience enables a person to recognise certain symptoms, either external or from within the body, and to deal with them adequately. Sometimes, however, certain internal states are so similar that there can be difficulty in distinguishing between them. This sometimes happens in relation to psycho-physical tension and hunger. In both cases, the person experiences unpleasant bodily sensations (e.g. intestinal cramps, abdominal burping, nausea, muscle trembling, feelings of weakness, cold, dizziness, increased heart rate). If the child does not learn early in life to distinguish and correctly name these conditions, he or she may begin to react inappropriately to them, i.e. interpret symptoms of stress as a signal of hunger. This will result in reaching for food far more than the body actually needs, and consequently overeating and gaining weight.
Psychological help and psychotherapy are advisable in this case in order to learn to identify bodily stimuli and to react to them appropriately. Particularly important in this regard is learning relaxation techniques to help relieve stress.
Family system
The functioning of the family a person comes from and the one he or she establishes has an enormous impact not only on feelings of happiness and contentment, but also on mental and somatic health. Health psychologists have discovered that there is a type of family in which illness becomes a way of communicating with each other and expressing feelings. They called this family psychosomatic and described it by: entanglement (extremely close and intense relationships, often intergenerational, e.g. between child and mother), overprotectiveness, rigidity, lack of conflict resolution, entanglement of children with parents. Such families are characterised by an intensified loyalty, which also extends to a large extent to the similarity of lifestyle, nutrition and even attitudes towards one's own body, or the similarity of symptoms. In this case, obesity becomes the label of the family in question, binds its members together and strengthens the sense of bonding. Attempting to change one's weight can create an unconscious fear of otherness and, consequently, rejection by the family. If this is suspected, psychological systemic therapy, involving all family members, should be included in the treatment of obesity.
