I Lost My Mother to Food Addiction & Obesity, but You Don’t Have To — Four Ways to Control the Urge to Overeat
I remember my mother going to the refrigerator to prepare breakfast on one of many Saturday mornings, pulling out a pack of bacon, cooking the entire package, and then eating all of its contents. She would then eat a whole can of prepackaged biscuits, several scumbled eggs, and drink half a carton of orange juice. At the time, I didn’t think that there was anything to be concerned about. I just knew that my mom had experienced a hard week at work and that she was treating herself. She would tell me that she needed to sit down and finally enjoy her food — for once. As the years went on, I would go to the refrigerator to grab a bite to eat and find that my entrée had disappeared. When I asked my mother what happened, she would share with me that she ate my food. “Why? You don’t even like Greek pasta salad?” I asked. She said, “I don’t like it — but it was there, so I ate it.” I’ll never forget that moment. Not because my mom had eaten the Greek pasta salad that I made — but because she ate ALL of something that she didn’t even enjoy. At that moment, I began to question — why would you eat something — if you didn’t want it or even enjoy it?
Over the years, my mother’s weight would go up and go down. She was always a “thick thighs save lives” kind of size woman —…
