Today I reread this post from 2017 when I had hope that I could cut down on sugar and lose weight. But of course in 2017 I was carrying huge amounts of emotional pain so there wasn’t really any hope of stopping my sugar habits, no matter how destructive I knew they were. Instead, since 2017 I’ve become steadily fatter.
My recent experiences make me think there’s no point in explaining to certain people why they should cut down on sugar. For certain people who cope with their emotional pain and life problems only by eating sweets, no amount of reasoning will help because we are hooked. We need that sugar to get through the day.
Of course, for those who aren’t emotionally dependent on sugar, yes, educate them on the unhealthiness of sweets. They can probably reason themselves off because they won’t have to fight their physiology and emotions.
But for those of us who are not only physically but emotionally dependent on sweets, the aim is better placed on the pain that keeps us returning to the sugar. What conditions of our life need to change? What old trauma needs to heal? What emotional baggage has to go?
If you can’t help someone with that, stop nagging them about cutting down on sweets. And telling them to fix their pain and problems so they can get off the sugar is still nagging.
So very accurate. I once watched a TV show where a renowned chef goes into a small Appalachian town and shows families how to cook better food. I could only stand to watch that first episode. The whole time, I was thinking, “But you haven’t changed WHY they stop and pick up a bucket of fried chicken on the way home form work.”
The chef didn’t understand that eating chicken in front of the TV was a family tradition by that point. That it was cool to have a chef buy their groceries and fix a meal for them (and tasty, too) but that they’d never want to spend an hour prepping food after working labor-intensive jobs all day.
Emotional and psychological needs drive eating way more than calories needed.
It should be obvious by now that no one eats badly because they don’t know which foods are healthy, yet so-called experts keep acting like education will stop obesity and poor nutrition. And family members, friends and health professionals think information, nagging and advice will solve things.