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Why Do People Overeat? Several Experts Analyze

1. Self-Defender

I like to eat.

2. Biologist

I am endomorphic. Hence I am extroverted and like to be surrounded by people, comfort, food. People who condemn over-eaters are ectomorphic, skinny nervous types, who can neither digest nor enjoy food as I can.

3. Sociologist

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In some cultures, fat is considered beautiful and desirable. If I fit that pattern better than the dominant more of thin beauty in my culture, then I should simply accept my misplaced role

4. Chemist

My thyroid gland is lax, my metabolism too slow to burn up actually normal rations of food.

5. Materialistic-Physicist

Certain times and places are themselves causes. Having food handy causes eating. Midnight causes eating. The whole is a mechanical chain reaction, in which the original stimulus is relatively unimportant. A diet is solely a question of habit and inertia.

6. Lay Psychologist

I overeat when other outlets for strong emotion are thwarted. I eat to punish myself. I eat to stop time, to avoid responsibility. I eat when I am unhappy. I eat when I am lonely. I eat when I am unloved.

6a. Freudian Psychologist

I am orally oriented. In childhood I overdeveloped my identification of food with love.

6b. Eriksonian Psychologist

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