Hi ,
Mother’s Day is coming and this got me thinking about mothering and the role mothers play with food and weight issues. Our mother is our first role model and for many women, she is our teacher, for good or bad, about our attitudes towards our bodies, food and weight.
Food and weight issues can often be traced back through the generations and many women who come to me say that one of the primary motivating factors for seeking healing is that they don’t want to pass their food and weight issues on to their daughters.
When working with clients, one of the questions I often ask is "Do you feel you got your needs met as a child?" The answer is often no. As a coach, I encounter many women (young and old) who are “unmothered.” What I mean by that is due to a variety of factors, they had poor or inadequate mothering in childhood and this helped to set the stage for a lifetime of neglect, addiction, eating issues, and other
dysfunction.
Now, please don’t get me wrong. Mothers do not cause and aren’t to blame for eating issues, addiction, etc. There are many complex factors that play into it. So, you could have a great mother and still have an eating disorder, addiction, or weight issue. It’s just that poor mothering makes certain individuals more vulnerable to these issues.
Because they didn’t get their developmental and emotional needs met, unmothered women are prone to be emotionally stuck at a certain stage of development. The sad truth is that many people get older but actually don’t grow up emotionally. This often leaves women with a sense that something is missing, or they don’t know who they are, or who they want to be when they grow up, even though they might be 55 or older. It’s because they
lack a strong sense of self.
To gain a sense of self, as children, we need to mirrored and affirmed for our good qualities and to be seen as separate individuals. We also need lots of love, encouragement, affection, and good boundaries. In dysfunctional families, children are often seen as extensions of the parent. Instead of the parent meeting the child’s needs, the child is often expected to mirror and meet the parent’s need for affirmation, love,
attention, etc.
