You may often hear laymen express the view that some people are fat because of "glandular trouble." Such cases actually are very few. The reason most people are fat is simply because they eat more food than they actually need for their activities. The only way to cut down on weight is to cut down on eating, to reduce the number of calories in your daily diet.



What Causes Overweight?

There are many causes for over?weight. Most people, however, are overweight simply because they overeat. A very small percentage of people are obese due to some endocrine or glandular disorder. Some cases possibly are due to an error in the individual's metabolism. And still another small percentage of cases result from an inherited or constitutional trait that runs in families and is passed on from one generation to another like coloring, or facial and bodily structure.

But the causes of obesity in over 95 per cent of the victims are: (1) nervousness, and (2) bad eating habits.

Nervousness is a Primary Cause of Overweight

People overeat from nervousness, either conscious or subconscious, for a variety of reasons. Some people, when they feel anxious, con?stantly and regularly relieve their anxiety with the satis?faction of eating. As they become more and more anxious, they require more and more food and become more and more fat! A vicious cycle.

Consider the teen child who is obese because of the lack of love and appreciation from her mother, who gives all her love and centers all her attention on her 2-year old, sickly little brother. Or the 30 something sales manager who is fat because he can't seem to stop eating in between meals and all during the evening as he sits by the television. He has been in danger of losing his job because his sales quotas continue to fall off and he feels certain that he will eventually lose his job. But still he eats. The more nervous he gets, the more he eats.

Some people are so habituated to living under constant tension in their work or at home that the glands in their nervous and glandular systems constantly drive their blood sugars to low levels. As a result they feel continuously hungry, weak, tired, and tense. Food momentarily raises their blood sugars to normal levels. By eating continuously or at least frequently in between meals, they are able to have the strength and concentration to complete their tasks at work or in the home.

A Feeling of Failure Can Lead to Overeating

Many other obese individuals eat out of sheer frustration or a feeling of failure. One man is a brilliant mathematician. He wanted badly to become a physicist and scholar, especially since he was a quiet, shy person. Instead, he was persuaded to enter his father's large and very suc?cessful business. An only son, he was to trained as his father's successor in the running of the extensive family fac?tories. Each day at work was one of frustration for him as he struggled to learn a business in which he basically had no in?terest. Probably most frustrating of all was the problem of coping with a hard-driving, dynamic father who dominated him and virtually threatened to crush his entire personality. Result? Every hour or so found him in the company cafeteria for a "breather," and the coffee breaks were easier to extend when some donuts, candy, or biscuits went along for the ride. At meal-hours, getting "oral" gratification from large meals with second helpings seemed to stave off the time for getting back to work during the day and seemed to make life tolerable. This man ate to ward off his constant frustration at his work and his domineering father. But his "solution" far from solved his basic problem; it created a new one on top of it.

We all know the eating of food is man's most primitive necessity for survival. And in order to survive the frustrations, tensions, anxieties, and loneliness that seem to grow worse with time, man often returns to his primitive behavior to give him a sense of some security and the feeling of overcoming his grow?ing worries. Many of these more severe prob?lems require the care and guidance of experts especially trained in the treatment of emotional disturbances.

Bad Food Habits a Second Main Cause of Weight Gain

It is remarkable how many people eat out of boredom, sheer habit, or to the accompaniment of a newspaper, a book, or a heated business discussion. Many succumb to the habit of eating at a fast food restaurant, in their rush to keep up with our fast life. Eating in their car while driving, or taking it home to eat while watching TV.

Others are trained from childhood to stuff themselves, "finish your plate." An old relic of primitive days when food scarcities or the uncertainties of a next meal or a next day were constantly present. Some call this "scavenger eating;" many children acquire this habit by imitating their parents who may have been raised under food scarcity circumstances.

Many people are the victims of just poor meal planning They rarely vary the choice of food due to the lack of time to plan, shop and prepare the food. So they try to make up in quantity what they lack in quality, seeking satisfaction from calories instead of from quality and contrast.

To start getting control of the weight problem in Americans, more of us need to understand why and how the weight was acquired and resolve the issues before starting a new diet.