Geneen Roth is the fortunate writer to most recently the best possible endorsement for a book: Oprah proclaimed that “every woman needs to read Women, Food and God”. Of course, I was curious to discover why Roth deserved such a lofty recommendation.
After reviewing her website I learned that Roth is no newcomer to best sellers. All of the products and books on her website reflect her well-honed expertise in helping people overcome emotional and compulsive eating. I knew instinctively that she has a keen understanding of these issues and I anxiously awaited the arrival of my ordered items. I bought her CD “Breaking Free from Emotional Eating” and was enthralled by it! The fact that this CD was made in 1986 clearly demonstrates that Roth’s ideas and approach are spot on and, to a certain extent, timeless.
Geneen Roth’s newest book Women, Food and God reflects the evolution of her thinking and work with eating and weight. I’ve discovered in talking to others about this book that having “God” in the title turns some folks off. But I encourage anyone who feels that way to look beyond this fact. “God” was a great keyword to include in the title for Search Engine Optimization. By using the word “God”, Roth implies that by courageously facing and entering the eye of the storm of one’s emotional eating, women can overcome the REAL issues that are numbing their lives and undermining their own SELF-REALIZATION AND FULFILLMENT. She refers to this process as an “opening” instead of a “closing.” Roth gracefully leaves whether this is a spiritual or personal process up to the reader.
Roth has real credibility, having gained and lost over 1000 pounds herself and having stumbled upon a life changing and lasting solution: Stop dieting and start listening to and trusting your own body.
She acknowledges how frightening a proposition this is for women who struggle with their weight. But in telling her own story and the stories of others, Roth makes a compelling case that women can end the war with their weight and bodies by examining what is underneath emotional eating. By constantly scrutinizing what we put into our mouths through dieting, Roth eloquently explains how we disconnect ourselves from our bodies and its needs. Ironically, being on a diet eventually causes us to eat more and gain weight.
I blogged about this very problem in October 2008 (Why Demonizing Food Defeats Us, http://www.essentialsteps.net/blog/page/2/ but from a different perspective. I explained, using Reactance Theory as a framework, that research suggests when humans feel their freedom is being threatened they ARE MOTIVATED TO RECLAIM THEIR FREEDOM. (This is what “reactance” implies. We are motivated to react and rebel against whatever is robbing us of our freedom.) In plain language, this means that when you diet and feel that you don’t have the freedom to eat what you want, you are actually MOTIVATED TO REBEL against the diet. This leads women to binge, thus leading to feelings of failure and self-loathing until the next cycle of dieting begins. It is Important to note that DIETING IS THE PREDOMINANT SOLUTION WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN FOR ADDRESSING EATING AND WEIGHT ISSUES IN OUR CULTURE. The irony is that, for many women, living in the dieting paradigm is what has caused them to binge and gain weight. (Clearly, dieting works for some women as a long-term solution. But I don’t think it works well for most.)
As someone who has lived in Europe, I can see a distinction between American and European women’s relationship with food. While women in Europe certainly care about their body size, they place extreme value on eating and living well and enjoying life to the fullest. While living in Spain, I heard Spanish women in midlife lament their changing bodies just like an American would. But, it was at a lower level of intensity and shame. In addition, Europeans, in general, have not been socialized to consider dieting and self-deprivation as a main lifestyle option as we have. Eating well is a valued priority and life experience in Europe. Some think that is precisely the reason that “French Women Don’t Get Fat” (a book by Mireille Guilliano.) While research in fact does show that waist lines are expanding around the globe, the heighted focus on weight and eating the “right foods” in the United States seems unique. It will be interesting to see if other countries also adopt the diet mentality if the “obesity epidemic” continues to worsen internationally as it appears to be doing.
Clotaire Rapaille in the Culture Code says his research has shown that becoming overweight in America represents people “checking out” and disconnecting from their lives. He and Roth agree on this key point. He suggests that diet marketers have effectively tapped into this unconscious issue and offer new dieting approaches as a way for overweight folks to “re-connect”. While these new dieting solutions hook people and get them to re-focus on the next new diet, clearly they do not offer a lasting solution. Rapaille says that the opposite tension from “checking out” is “connection”, something else that Roth would agree with. Roth unapologetically suggests that the only way for women to stop emotional eating and the cycle of weight gain is by no longer dieting so that they can CONNECT WITH and heal their core issues.
While dieting and weight gain is, to some extent, also clearly related to our current society and culture (e.g., huge portion sizes at restaurants, expensive or no fresh fruits and vegetables in inner cities), I have come to a conclusion similar to that of Roth about individual level change: Most women will not be able to escape the eating/diet/exercise/weight gain cycling unless they LEAVE the diet mindset and paradigm. Roth’s approach and programs are among the very best options that I’ve seen to accomplish this.
I’ve had my own experience leaving this mindset. While I have never been a large person, I used to be 15-20 pounds heavier than I am now. Despite not being in the state of extreme pain and desperation that Roth talks about when she initiated her eating experiment, twenty years ago I got tired of thinking SO MUCH about food, weight and my body. This was probably just normal body vigilance for a 20-something woman but it was still exhausting. At that time, I created a mindset-change experiment. I told myself: “Michelle, you can eat ANYTHING you want as long as you are really hungry for it and you have to stop eating when you feel satiated.” To play this game, I had to TUNE INTO MY BODY in a way that I hadn’t before. It was a strange new experience to connect to my body and self before putting something in my mouth. One day, a couple of weeks into this experiment, someone offered me a delicious looking chocolate truffle from a box of elegant chocolates. So, as per my experiment rules, I paused to check in with my body to see whether it felt like eating chocolate. (I have always loved chocolate!) You can imagine my shock when I realized that eating chocolate didn’t appeal to me then, and I politely declined.
In that moment, I discovered something very powerful, and it is what Roth is a true master at helping people achieve: When you tune into your body and its messages you FREE YOURSELF. You are no longer enslaved by food rules. Once you realize this and start listening to your body, food loses its tyrannical power over you and your energy is freed up to realize your full potential. Roth notes that in the beginning of this new path of eating, people can “go to town” on the forbidden foods. But after that psychological reactance energy has been released, food goes from being “bad” and “good” to just being FOOD. Without psychological resistance at work on your mind and body, YOUR needs and YOUR hunger and satiation signals are what become center stage. You stop gorging on foods like cookies out of psychological reactance and rebellion, and instead eat them when FEEL like it. You also start to notice how you feel after you eat certain foods. You’ll start wanting to eat foods that you didn’t used to want to eat because they felt like “should” foods. These foods now become desirable because your new body awareness teaches you that these foods make you feel better and have more energy.
It’s interesting to note that what happens with women and exercise reflects the same phenomenon but with a polar opposite reaction. Instead of compulsively doing a behavior, it leads to NOT doing a behavior. From my research, I have shown that when women exercise within a diet/weight loss mindset, they feel that they “should” exercise and thus rebel against doing it. In the case of exercising, women feel constrained by the idea that they HAVE TO exercise, and their psychological reactance says “you can’t tell me to exercise!” This causes women to desire to NOT exercise. It creates a cyclical approach from extreme exercise to no exercise just as dieting creates a cyclical approach to restraint and binging. Jane Brody interviewed me in the New York Times about these ideas a couple of months ago, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/health/09brod.html. My work with women and exercise shows the same thing as Roth’s discovered with women and eating: By breaking from the diet mentality and disconnecting the behavior with trying to lose weight women re-connect to their body and its unique desires and needs. This results in self-affirmation and a deep sense of freedom. It also results in long-term behavioral sustainability.
Roth contends that we can’t ever come to peace with our bodies and stop emotional eating and the diet roller coaster until we become willing to face “our demons”, the true source of emotional eating. This is definitely a frightening thing to do. But according to Roth (and many other wise authors, such as Elizabeth Lesser (Broken Open) and Pema Chodron (When Things Fall Apart ), lovingly witnessing our true pain instead of running away, disconnecting or numbing ourselves to it is “an unexpected path to almost anything” (Cover: Women, Food, and God) and is truly transformational.
I HIGHLY encourage you to watch Roth on Oprah this week, May 12th at 4:00 EST and to check out Roth’s website, http://geneenroth.com. Geneen Roth has discovered an authentic solution to the diet and weight cycling and she is also an INCREDIBLE teacher. She is a true master from whom we can all learn.