Maybe there is no deep dark secret like that in someone's past... maybe the physical pleasure of eating is just worth more to them than being healthy or thin? I'd wager that if a person put some time into it, they could really find a root cause, not necessarily abuse, then some pain or rejection that was an "aha!" moment for them.

There's a point along the way where we all decided it was "okay" to be fat. To settle for being inthe background, for becoming invisible behind a layer of flesh. Or, in MY case, the insulating layer let me be "bigger than life".. I was the life of the party, the quintessential "Jolly fat girl". My outrageous behavior was a mask to keep people at an arm's length. If you don't KNOW me and reject me, it doesn't hurt. If I pretend I'm happy with myself, you can't hurt me. Those are the lies I told myself...

I was tired of being hurt, tired of being rejected by the men I chose to pin my life to. If I'm fat, and a man finds me unattractive, then it's HIS fault for being shallow.... Like when I'd choose men who treated me badly time and time again and couldn't commit...I'd try to save them, and when I couldn't, it wasn't MY fault.

My fat was my excuse to not make myself vulnerable, just like my choice of "losers" meant I never had to really be vulnerable, because they never stuck around long enough to get to know me, and I knew it, deep down.

I don't know if I'll ever be able to trust someone else completely, but I am learning for the first time, to trust myself. Each unpleasant feeling I experience while losing my "shelter" has to be hauled out into the light of day, and challenged for the self-damaging lie it is!!