Weight gain may be not only a psychological (“I hate how I look, it makes me depressed”) but also a biological (overweight people have elevated levels of inflammation that may increase depression) factor worsening depression.
Great, but what to do about this?
Most of us already knew that we should lose weight, and more guilt doesn’t help.
One very interesting approach is to try to bring some order to our eating, which often alternates between indulgence and starvation. Geneen Roth, in her book, Why Weight? A Guide to Ending Compulsive Eating , argues that we can sanely and carefully lose weight if we pay attention to how we eat. She has seven rules that are worth attending to carefully:
- Eat when you are hungry
- Eat sitting in a calm environment
- Eat without distractions
- Eat only what you want
- Eat until you are satisfied
- Eat with the intention of being in full view of others
- Eat with enjoyment, pleasure and gusto.
Frankly, we like her psychological approach to the problems of over-eating.
Although the link between eating and stress and anxiety is very common (sugar acts in some ways like a drug – it helps to reduce anxiety in the short term, but over time indulging in it makes anxiety and depression worse), we can do things to change how we act and come up with alternative ways of dealing with stress. Geneen’s book is a good place to start.