Does Trauma Make Us Fat?

Does trauma make us fat?

Clients often tell me that they experience difficulty with their weight despite being active and diligent with their nutrition.

While doing some research this morning, I came across a line that fascinated me - and sheds light on the situation:

“The first response to a life threat is hyperarousal. It alerts us to the danger and supports a fight or flight response. If these are untenable, the freeze response is activated - an instantaneous, systemic state of profound hypoarousal and metabolic retardation” (Hill, 2015).

What this suggests is that when the demands of a situation exceed our capacity to act, our systems collapse. The physiological consequences of this are signifiant.

Breathing and circulation are constricted, resulting in an experience of sluggishness, and we become exhausted. The everyday activities of life become increasingly difficult because in such a state we’re separated from the biological resources that could otherwise support our movement through the world.

Here we find a complex tangle, which all-too-often results in a vicious circle.

Recently I described the “triangle of conflict” developed by Malan (1979), in which repressed feelings lead to anxiety and defenses. Emotional experience that exceeds our capacity to respond is negated through muscular contraction (this is the bodily basis of anxiety), and we further distance ourselves from the difficult experience through various behaviors - including compulsive eating.

Most of us are familiar with the experience of “eating our feelings” or dealing with sugar cravings when stressed. Food becomes a coping mechanism to regulate ourselves, relying on an outside source of support when we’re unable to rely on our internal resources. What happens when we act on those impulses while our systems are in a state of metabolic shutdown? Of course we gain weight.

Further complicating this situation is the corresponding change in our perception.

I’ve mentioned elsewhere a study by Sugovic et al. (2016) which indicates that individuals who weigh more perceive distances as longer than what individuals who weigh less perceive. This suggests that for folks who weigh more, moving through the world literally appears to take more work.

Of course, it’s not hard to imagine that this results in a disinclination toward physical activity…not because of laziness but because of a very real perceptual situation, compounded by a physiologically under-resourced state. Reduction in activity compounds the metabolic situation brought about by emotional conflict, and here we can see the makings of a perfect storm.

It’s amazing to me how complex the situation is and how quick people are to reduce it to convenient sound-bites.

However, I’m encouraged by the results my clients see when we take this situational complexity into account. As we work to develop their movement ability, it results in changes in their perception of various activities’ difficulty, making movement seem both easier and more enjoyable. Likewise as we regulate emotional experience and resolve underlying psychological conflicts, compulsive behaviors like emotional eating dissipate and the entire physiological system comes back to life.

It’s not an overnight change, but time and time again I see that an appreciation of complexity actually makes the situation much, much simpler.

If you’d like support with this, click here to learn more about how I work with new clients. We’ll take a thorough look at the complexities of your current situation and determine a workable plan to move reliably toward the goals that matter most to you.

References:

Hill, D. (2015). Affect Regulation Theory: A clinical model. W.W. Norton and Company, Inc.

Malan, D. H. (1979). Individual psychotherapy and the science of psychodynamics. London: Butterworths.


Sugovic M, Turk P, Witt JK. Perceived distance and obesity: It's what you weigh, not what you think. Acta Psychol (Amst). 2016 Mar;165:1-8.