If you’re trying to make sense of food compulsions like overeating, binge eating, night bingeing and sugar seeking, a fresh perspective might make all the difference.
Most approaches to overeating focus on these four things:
- Healing physiological factors – like diet, nutrition, healing the physical body, supporting the brain
- Teaching skills – mindfulness skills, self care skills, emotional skills, and stress relief skills
- Changing behavior – in simple terms, how to stop overeating and make different choices
- Changing thoughts and beliefs – how to change your self concept (what you believe about yourself), how to change painful thoughts
The desired end result for all these approaches is the same – less overeating and food compulsion, as well as freedom from the impulse itself. And all of these things can be helpful – they are not wrong.
But they are incomplete.
Here’s why: they’re missing an understanding of what enables you to change behavior, what organically leads to changes in your thoughts and beliefs, and what supports you in implementing a new way of eating and learning new skills.
Most people know that they need to eat less sugar, or that they need to eat more vegetables, or that they tend to overeat in the afternoons. Knowing what to do and a willingness to change are often not the problem.
What’s missing is development. It’s development, not skills, that helps us change our behavior. It’s development, not thinking, that helps us regulate emotions, strengthen impulse control, and stop doing things (like overeating) that cause suffering and pain. It’s development, not knowledge, that helps us follow through on all our good intentions to eat more whole foods or less sugar.
Add a layer of development underneath the teaching of skills, nutrition or healing the body’s physiology, and these things can “stick” and take root.
I’ve created a course, When Food is Your Mother, that integrates this developmental perspective to foster relief from food compulsions like overeating, binge eating, night bingeing and sugar obsessing.
Here’s how a developmental approach frames the solution to overeating:
- Compulsive overeating points to a need for human development, for maturation and growth. So the key for healing is this: how do we support development?
- You are where you are. The fact that you got stuck in your development is not your fault, a character flaw, proof of spiritual failure or evidence of faulty thinking. It simply means you didn’t have the luxury for growth.
- What fosters maturation and growth is secure, loving attachment: loving relationship.
- Loving relationship and secure attachments are what enable you to care for the pain that, in the moment, drives overeating.
- Attachment can be found in your relationship with yourself, with others, and, if you’re spiritually oriented, with God or life.
With a developmental approach, your goal is the same – freedom from the overeating. But how you get there looks different. Rather than focusing on skills, changing behavior, or modifying thoughts, you support the development that naturally leads to changes in your behavior, your thoughts, and your relationship with food. And you support this development through attachment: through loving relationship.
You can learn more about When Food is Your Mother and buy the course here.
This really resonates with me. I am a very lonely person with not much social contacts and so very prone to addiction to fill the gap. However when I connect with people more, I feel that this is very healing.
Sadly it seems we are heading towards a more isolated society. I don't intend to be a part of that anymore.
I love it Karly! I love that you are taking a clear stand on your approach and perspective. I especially love it because you are so RIGHT. 🙂
I have used the 30 Day lift for a few months now and am truly ready for this next course. Please add a link to the blog so that I can sign up! I loved the 30 day lift. It changed my life, but I really could use more tools about binge eating and why I use food for stress relief. I am going easy on myself as it has been a rough few weeks due to a big move, but I’m remembering that being kind to myself is what matters! Julie
Hi Julie,
I’m so glad to hear that The 30 Day Lift was so helpful to you! We’re so close to having this ready for sale and anticipate launching tomorrow – we’ll add the link when it’s up.
I’m so glad to hear that you’re being gentle with yourself during this transition – moving is never easy, and is a time for lots and lots of kindness and support!
Warmly,
Karly
Hi Julie,
I wanted to let you know that the link is now live – When Food is Your Mother is now up for sale, should it interest you.
https://growinghumankindness.com/mother/
Warmly, Karly
I love receiving your emails & enjoyed your blog. I’m in my 7th yr of a 12 st food program & am hitting a wall. I’ve been a binge eater & restrictor since I can remember & have learned lots of useful tools from program, my nutritionist & other sources. I’m now in my mid forties & my body is going through peri menopause. I guess I’m just asking for more support…
Hi Becca,
I’m glad that you’re finding so many sources of support, and that the emails and blog are helpful to you. I have a lot of empathy for you – those walls can be frustrating. I hope that a door may begin to appear, a way of walking through a place that feels “stuck.”
If you’re looking for more hands on help, you may enjoy this page here on overeating and binge eating – https://growinghumankindness.com/overeating-support/
You may also like this page here as it offers tools specifically for bingeing – https://growinghumankindness.com/tools-to-stop-an-oncoming-binge/
Warmly,
Karly
Hi Karly. I have worked with you in years passed and have a question. My 6 yr old daughter seems to be an overeater already and has been since she was very young. I believe she has a very strong sense of attachment and isn’t eating for that reason. I think she just likes to eat. Sometimes she sneaks food. I never tell her she is bad for eating. I just say we need to stop snacking so you’ll have room for dinner…I don’t want her to develop a guilty relationship around food and yet I feel like I need to set limits. Any advice on this? Thank you,
Angie
Hi Angie,
Great to hear from you!
This is such a great question! There are certainly other reasons why a kiddo can overeat besides attachment. Two that come to mind are sensitivity and alarm. A sensitive child can eat to feel more buffered from life’s stimuli. And if a child’s alarm system is raised (anxiety), eating can be a way to try and self soothe and soften the feelings of alarm.
And certainly a child can like to eat for the sheer pleasure of it!
Six is also an age when a child is becoming more aware of the world, and this can elevate the alarm system. I remember when my son was 6, his mind become cognizant of mortality – the fact that mom and dad (and his siblings) could die. This manifested as lots of fears of going to bed at night.
It sounds like you’re doing a great job connecting with your daughter and setting limits without shaming her needs or behavior. If you suspect your daughter is sensitive or feeling alarmed, I highly recommend Dr. Neufeld’s course on anxiety in children – it’s very helpful for understanding and helping children with elevated alarm.
You can learn more here – http://neufeldinstitute.org/course/making-sense-of-anxiety/
And watch to this talk on alarm and kids – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hymwvaZ9oKg
Warmly,
Karly