Many families, consciously or not, have an emotional relationship with food: having a good fork or being a good living is a sign of happiness shared by all. It is also the proof of the emotional bond and attachment shown to the person who cooked, with an emotional charge increased if it is the mother.

The offered food is symbolically a proof of love. To refuse to eat is to refuse love . Result: we finish his plate to the last crumb, even to go beyond his satiety, to say how much we love, not betray family customs or give pleasure.

The problem? This goes beyond the family circle, and guilt takes hold of one who relegates the surplus of her plate when she is satiated. Thinning forces one to navigate between an inner conflict, fueled by the culpable desire to refine, and a conflict of loyalty to one's own.

Morphology: a part of heritage

When you are part of a family of circles, being thinner can be a disavowal of its roots, or even a break or a symbolic treason. Roundness validates the belonging to the lineage.

Therefore, how to allow (really) to lose weight at the risk of hurting those we love? Especially since "to lose weight is also to break with those who love us as we are, and to whom we say, by losing weight, that they are wrong to love us thus, since we ourselves do not do not like, "decrypts Dr. Gérard Apfeldorfer, psychiatrist specializing in eating disorders and author of Lose weight, it's in the head (Ed Odile Jacob).

When the guilt is too painful, the unconscious has a weapon to spare us this suffering: not to succeed in losing weight.

Unconscious fear of being desirable

The kilos form a carapace that protects the eyes of others, the aggressions of the outside world and the masculine desire in particular, but also his own desire for the other, conscious or not. They make it possible to establish a distance between the other and oneself and, it is believed, to prevent desire.

For to please, to be desirable, to feel desire, to surrender oneself to the body-to-body of sexuality, as any relation to another, can be experienced as endangerment, because it induces a loss of control. To lose weight is to become vulnerable until you become anxious. "Stuck between the difficulty of facing their fears and lose weight, some unconsciously choose to protect themselves by keeping their weight," says Dr. Bernard Waysfeld, psychiatrist and nutritionist, author of The Weight and the Ego ( Armand Colin ed).

Eat to console yourself

Blues, stressful meeting, breakup or anger ... We're goinfre to anesthetize the emotions that hurt . Concern ? It works ! Eating, releasing soothing endorphins into the blood, is the most natural antidepressant. A phenomenon reinforced with the sweet, which boosts the rate of serotonin, the molecule of the serenity.

Result: we put the cover every time that life grimace, and as we swallow more calories without hunger than we spend, we store.

The vicious circle widens: "While one laments one's weight, one avoids confronting one's less well known or more painful problems, but in the long run, the more we avoid our emotions, the less we support them. Thus, at first, we eat to console ourselves with great pain, then we eat for slamming doors, and even before the emotions occur, "warns Dr. Jean-Philippe Zermati, nutritionist and behavioral therapist, author of Lose weight without regretting , is it possible ? ( Odile Jacob ed.)

Slipping into the image that the other projects on oneself

Because the desired man loves us voluptuous and in order to seduce him better, we adopt these generous curves displayed "out of love", although they do not stick to the body diagram in which we feel good, or in which we recognize ourselves . Torn emotionally, one gets caught up in a dilemma that activates fears - less pleasing to him, his desire may become blunted - and that mishandles self-image, which one does not appreciate the reflection.

Knowing that sometimes loved ones are ambivalent and may unwittingly wish to lose weight, as Dr. Waysfeld puts it, "Some fear what could happen if you lose weight." Would not you be even more attractive? In the eyes of all, kilos can also be seen as a mark of fragility or dependency, in which there may be a benefit to you. "

Comply with the vision of a mother who devotes a cult to the body

Since adolescence, some women have been struggling to satisfy the ideal image that their mother conceives of them . In vain, it is never good enough, nor even enough. Draconian dietary imperatives in yoyos, they spend their life struggling with themselves to try to dominate this object that has become their body.

"Unconsciously, they continue the maternal intransigence with themselves," says Dr. Waysfeld. Over time, self esteem crumbles and, weakened, they crack and comfort in the food. Chess in weight recovery, defense mechanism of the body requires no more diet does not work. Moreover, "not losing weight can also be a way of staying in opposition to the internalized maternal image," he says.

The unspoken accumulate in the form of curves

Gamine already, we were gagged with a: "Shut up and eat!" We take on ourselves and cash without blinking - small humiliations, sorrows, anger ... - at work and at home. But the feeling is expressed anyway.

The kilos materialize everything that is not allowed or dare not say. No dietary measure can work without first unlocking the words that will open the way to the evils: "Dare to speak is to take the risk of being finally heard," insists psychologist Michèle Freud, author of Mincir and reconcile with self (Albin Michel ed).

When succeeding in losing weight is equivalent to making a success of your life

For some of us, achieving weight loss has become the standard measure of value. Or not.

In the sense that to master his project of thinness means to control his life (professional, romantic, social) and thus to succeed, with the underlying idea: "I will be finally happy when I have thinned." Lose weight is then under the yoke of a cognitive pressure that leaves no emotional respite and against which the body will defend itself. Either it locks or it takes off at first, but inevitably recurrent compulsions follow the restriction.

A key: on recovery of weight, even eating disorders.

Getting to know each other: a real slimming solution

You start working on yourself with a shrink, to identify and then untie the knots that hinder weight loss. "Many people who start a diet try to ignore their psychological and relational difficulties to focus on weight loss. They postpone clashes and questioning, but it will be easier, they think, when they lose weight, but it's not so: becoming thin is not just about losing weight , it requires more complex transformations. in itself as simple weight loss, "says Dr. Apfeldorfer.

In addition to dietetics, weight loss can involve putting the spotlight on what is played between each other, food and the relationship present or passed to loved ones. Also to clarify the relationship we have with his body, to decipher the meaning of his extra pounds and the challenge that is placed behind the prospect of thinness.

Behavioral and cognitive therapy allows to work on the image of oneself, on one's relationship with food and on toxic thoughts, such as: "If I lose weight, I betray mine, I will be the only thin one", or: " To be loved, I have to lose weight. "

Psychotherapy of analytical inspiration makes it possible to verbalize emotions and fears, to free oneself and to go back to the unconscious source of a malaise. In the end, we learn to tame and support our affects without managing them through food, to distance past wounds, to assert ourselves in our body and in our lives, to show goodwill, and to restore 'self esteem.