By Michael Prager
Chairman
There are the causes of disordered eating. And there are the popular remedies for it.
GLP-1s are the unprecedented, overwhelming favorites right now, hailed as life-changing by users who report significantly lower “food noise,” easier appetite control, and other benefits. But before them there was bariatric surgery, and before that a legion of diets, fad and otherwise.
All these techniques have helped some people reduce their body weight, with varying levels of side effects and long-term success.
But a question rarely asked is, how did these patients reach the metrics that qualified them for Ozempic (and the like), or for the various bariatric techniques?
GLP-1s mimic the natural GLP-1 hormone to slow gastric emptying,
increase satiety, reduce appetite in the brain, and stimulate insulin release. Bariatric procedures reduce stomach size while affecting gut-brain signaling in ways that promote earlier satiety, lower appetite, etc.
But did patients lack natural GLP-1, or did bariatric patients have stomachs that were too big? Or do the techniques address unwanted outcomes of different origins?
GLP-1 medication, bariatric surgery, and OG diets have helped people to lose weight — and sure, that’s why people have turned to them. But none of them get at the “why,” as in, “what factors led to my needing drugs, surgery, and/or diets?”
We’re not talking about fault. Addiction is a brain disease that causes some people, based on their physiology, to react differently to substances and/or behaviors than other people do. People with or without this physiology can be driven to overeat by unresolved trauma and many other causes.
Our experience with Food Addiction tells us that these factors are very often more important to address than how or how much one eats. That’s why Food Addiction is not defined only, or even chiefly, as a weight issue. And that’s why techniques to lose weight can improve one’s health prospects.
But without facing the fullness of one’s situation, even the best weight-loss solutions are unable to bring the serenity that results from identifying and working to ease what underlies one’s behaviors.
