Chapter 4 The Great Escape

Again, a few things I want to share.....

First, she says that if you put someone in a hard or painful situation without giving healthy ways to handle it then it causes her to experience pain and you have an overwhelmed, frightened person who will either want to fight or flee. She goes on to explain this is why she thinks that more girls than boys have eating disorders because society encourages boys to fight through sports and physical play when girls are taught more to be nice and helpful. So, she is required to find escape within the situation and food will do that. She gives a great example that I'm going to share...."A friend of mine used to keep his cigarettes in his shirt pocket. He had not smoked for ten years on the evening when he dropped into a convenience store for a carton of milk. A kid came into the store waving a gun. Steve froze while the clerk emptied the cash register and the kid ran out of the store. Then Steve reached into his pocket for a cigarette. It had been yen years since he'd smoked one, but his hand went for the drug that would help him cope with such extreme fear." She explains that the body automatically goes for something for solace when confronted with a situation, and it normally goes for something that it knows has worked before. It's amazing what she talks about what research has shown that our body does, on a constant basis. She talks about how we know that eating is not going to help us lose weight, or wear the clothes that we want or feel the way we want but the need to lessen any pain that you are feeling is more than the need to look good. She explains that it makes sense in terms of our priorities. She uses Maslow's ranking of needs as this:

1.Body needs---air, water, food, temperature

2. Safety and protection from harm

3. Status, approval, love acceptance, belonging

4.Competence, adequacy, security, self-esteem

5. Curiosity, to know and understand

6.Order, structure, system

7. Self-actualization, exploration, newness, values, artistic expression, self-fulfillment, meaning

This list makes complete sense, other than in food addiction as well. She also mentions if a woman is in an abusive relationship she would rather have security then to leave and have self-fulfillment and meaning in her life. That is the exact reason why diets don't stand a chance, in our minds we really want to have appearance be more important than food, but our instincts are different and we always go for the food. So, it's very important to understand that it's not because you're weak or a bad person that you have failed so many diets, it's simply the way we're programmed.