Many years ago some psychologists and dr's made careers for themselves talking about the "addict's personality" traits which supposedly drew you to alcohol, drugs, food, whatever. It made a lot of intuitive sense, and they could look at addicts and see these traits, so what could be wrong? Well, ANOTHER psychologist said, wait, if these traits predict addiction, we can do a long term study, find out if more people with these factors become addicts. So he did, there was NO predictive value. Some people with sunny outgoing dispositions became sullen withdrawn addicts, some with fearful needy traits didn't, etc. His conclusion, YOU GET AN ADDICT'S PERSONALITY BY BEING ADDICTED. GI's treated with morphine in VA hospitals became addicted. No relationship to personality. I'm not arguing with what some of you have said about using food for comfort, etc., would hope to make us feel better, that because we get emotional help from food does not make us different, weird, emotionally unhealty, whatever. Its the nature of the food that most of us have eaten in the past. Cheers, Bill

The main benefit I can think of that being overweight might have brought me was this: I knew I couldn't compete with other girls in terms of looks, so I devoted all my attention to my strongest area, which was academics. I read extensively and ended up getting into a very good college and marrying a fellow egghead. I'm sure I often thought things like "Yeah, she's pretty/thin, but I'm smarter than she is" .....

I cant think of any benefit?

I do think that part fo the reason I havent ever tried hard to lose the weight though before my adult life was because my mom was CONSTANTLY making terribly rude comments about every single thing I put in my mouth....It made me never want to lose weight or give her the pleasure.... even now its tough when 2 times a day she calls and asks me "how much weight have you lost now?" *sigh* but alas...I am doing this for ME and for my beautiful children.

As a child my mom said I was a gluton. I loved to eat. I would eat my lunch and then eat again when my dad came home for lunch!! I still love to eat
Luckyly I wasn't fat as a kid or a teen. I didn't have any problems getting attention from boys & even did some modeling, yup I was a looker. I admit love getting attention.

The only benefit in being fat is that I could eat whatever I wanted and not care. I gained weight in my first marriage, I was HUGE. THen I left him and the weight came off all by itself and I was thin again.

I'm with my 2nd husband now and we both gained weight since we've been together (8 years) I quit smoking in 1996 and started packing on the weight.

In my case I think I hit a comfort zone where it didn't matter what I looked like, cut my hair short for convenience and bought comfy clothes, didn't care if they were flattering.

Both DH and I tried to lose weight prior to this WOE, counting calories & fat & STARVING until we cheated and never lost any weight on those plans.

I went blond in 2001 and started growing my hair long again, I started to care about my looks again. We STarted this WOE in March and since I've started losing the weight I won't wear unflatering clothes & I enjoy the attention I'm getting again. My DH is really hot now too!! He gets lot of attention as well

I've rambled long enough!

i have this worry that if i am thin i will become a whimp.

i have this wierd theory that a person wanting to harm somebody (whether is is rape or mugging, or whatever) they would bypass a large person because they would be harder to subdue.

also i have a pretty physical job and i work mostly with men. so far i can pretty much hold my own and there have been many small women come and go, they were not pshysically able to do the same job as me.

so there are my worries about becomming thing and my thoughts about the benifits of being large.

Interesting points, Acipenser. I think many people associate being large with strength and sometimes with health. I read that the British celebrity cookbook writer Nigella Lawson said that because so many people close to her have gotten very thin when they were gravely ill, she could not bring herself to diet to "model" thinness.

Size doesn't always equal strength, but I see your point. Size can be a pretty effective "cushion" against being treated like a weakling or having people try to intimidate you.

On a lighter note... the bigger you are, the more of a sitting duck you may be...after all, at MY weight, I couldn't exactly make a speedy getaway!!!!

I have a unexpected benefit to being fat... something I've only noticed now that I've lost 20 lbs... WRINKLES! Seriously, fat "smooths" out the wrinkles on my face. I've lost 20 lbs and lo and behold, there are LINES on my face. Not dramatic (YET! I still have 20-30lbs to go!!!!), but enough that I'm buying some wrinkle cream next week and getting serious about it!

As for barriers, I don't have any conscious or subconsious ones... I want to be thin again, I hated that the fertility medications and poor medical advice on diet caused me to gain the weight I have... I have a husband who loves me when I'm fat, but would be so much happier when I am fit and healthy so that he knows we'll be together longer.

I too saw that Dr. Phil thing, and yes, I guess I could see someone using fat as a shield from the world... but in that case a weight loss program won't work for them, therapy would be wiser to do...you know?

Blessings!

Wrinkles are a well known "cost" of being thin after a certain age. I've heard it said that an older woman may have to choose between her face and her hips. I'm sure we've all seen many very thin older women (over 60) whose faces look--I don't know--the word tragic comes to mind? It helps with wrinkles if you get plenty of essential fats in supplement form, as well as eating the fats necessary to LCing.

I have wrinkled too-and I'm 35. Even with the wrinkles, I still look younger than I did 45 pounds ago.

I'd been wondering about this quite a lot lately - why I cheat and am fearful to get to a milestone.

I can fantasize about being thin all I want, but I am afraid to actually get there! I've developed a self-esteem that matches my body size. I've gotten used to being me. So to "suddenly" turn into someone different is really scary! There are so many more things to have to worry about if I'm thin - icky guys hitting on me, new way that people will see and react to me, etc.

Despite it all, it'd sure be nice to get rid of those limitations and have the not so icky guys hitting on me, as well as the fabulous clothes I'll design for myself!

As far as benefits of being fat - well, fewer icky guys!

Hey Delilah - love that hiar!

He "discovers" that she was sexually abused as a child and stays fat to stay unsexy (sorry, I think that's an overused example of why someone might prefer to be fat).

I don't know about it being an over-used excuse but it sure is a valid one. On another board there was a thread about someone who had been raped three times and stayed fat to keep these creeps away. Yes, it really does happen. Woman after woman joined that thread, saying the same thing. Again and again the pattern was repeated. The 'protective' quality of being fat was the motivation behind NOT losing weight. They wanted to be unattarctive, they wanted to stay anonymous. Part of the struggle is learning to cope with being/feeling vulnerable again.

Staying fat is defiitely a protective measure for some. The sexual abuse theme may well have been overused in the media (Roseanne example - I'm a total b*tch to everyone because I was abused. What rot.) but it is still a valid one, if not as prevalent as therapists make out.

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!!