Obesity and a Death Wish

 “Ruin and recovery  are found within.” -Epictetus

Have you ever wondered why so many people are overweight? There is so much information about healthy choices that are available to everyone. Yet, people continue to make poor health decisions regardless. Perhaps, Freud’s theory of personality has an answer.

Freud postulated two main drives or instincts. There was the life instinct and there was the death instinct. He believed that the ultimate goal of life, was death. He also thought that this death instinct or wish was, of course, unconscious and had an aggressive component to it. This drive could either turn against itself and/or against others.

We know that oral gratification (lips and tongue) and eating are in fact pleasurable and related to the life instinct. We also know that people eat when they are hungry and for nutrition. However, it is obvious that overweight people consume great quantities of food that far exceed their need for hunger or their nutrition deficiencies.

It seems that the overweight individuals are driven to eat in unhealthy ways despite knowing whether it is right or wrong for them. Perhaps it is their death instinct that has emerged and gained control over their life instinct behavior. We know they are essentially eating themselves to death and to an early grave. One certainly can argue that their death wish is unfortunately dominant. And, their aggressiveness is turned inward on themselves.

So underneath the outward, smiling jolly ness, these individuals are driven in a very unproductive way. They might tell you they’re happy, but they are obviously fooling themselves. So all the literature about healthy eating, and exercise goes for naught. That’s why someone telling them to change falls on deaf ears because they are driven by an unconscious instinct.

Hopefully these points are food for thought. In any event, if you can, keep moving, smiling, laughing, loving, bonding and appreciating.