Beyond Willpower: Understanding Overeating

Imagine an old tree stump. Over the years it has grown mushrooms, moss, grass; it has blended into the forest so naturally that it feels almost wrong to remove it. You look at it and think: you could pull it out… but why? You should, maybe - yet you don’t want to. You want to, and you’re afraid.

This is exactly how symptoms work. Over time they become overgrown with life: habits, routines, familiar people, a certain social world. They serve a purpose. They become part of your identity. And that’s why you can’t simply “get rid of them.” This has nothing to do with willpower. You cannot uproot years‑long patterns by force.

To change anything, you first need to understand yourself and the symptom.
Let’s take overeating or binge eating as an example.

Sometimes it’s a family story a quiet loyalty to traditions and values. It doesn’t matter that some of those traditions may be unhelpful or outdated. They are part of your family, and therefore part of you.

Sometimes it’s rooted in years of dieting. Then physiology takes the lead. Your wise brain has no idea when the next “famine” will come, so it prefers to keep you safe and overeat whenever it can. In this sense, you are still an ancient hunter‑gatherer. Progress has moved on, but your brain is still faithfully performing its original task: keeping you alive.

And sometimes it’s about headaches, feeling unwell, self‑pity, or simply a bad day. Food becomes medicine and comfort. Think of advertising slogans: “You deserve it,” “Treat yourself,” “Take a break.” This is learned behaviour that, after just a few repetitions, becomes a habit. And habits are hard to break.

But personal history is only one layer. There is also the environment you live in and it is designed to work against you.

The giant food industry, backed by top‑tier marketers, has perfected everything: packaging colours, names, branding — all crafted to make you pick a product off the shelf, take it home, repeat the ritual, and come back for more. Ingredient lists, especially where sugar hides under dozens of aliases like dextrose or maltose, could fill pages.

Teams of skilled professionals work to keep you buying regularly and to hook you on their formulas.

So next time you walk into a supermarket, switch off autopilot and ask yourself why you’re choosing a particular item - not fish or potatoes, but packaged foods. Ask your friend GPT to break down the ingredients for you.

Take salted caramel. Why is it salted? Because it tastes better, you can eat far more of it, and it’s less cloying. It gives you a maximal dopamine spike. After that, ordinary food feels dull, and a person becomes an easy target for a massive industry. A huge share of overeating and disordered eating grows out of this modern food environment.

And this is why it’s not about “weakness.” Don’t fool yourself into thinking it’s easy to resist once you’ve brought it home. The simplest strategy is not to bring in the foods you’re likely to overeat. If you really want something, have it in a café or buy a small chocolate and eat it outside - just don’t keep it in the house. And don’t justify it by saying it’s “for the kids, the spouse, friends, or guests.” You know that isn’t true.

Of course, this alone won’t solve serious binge‑eating problems or eating disorders, but it does make a difference. It may help you or someone at home more than you realise. A child in your household may already be developing a habit around those biscuits. These patterns often begin in childhood.

And then there is the emotional layer. People talk a lot about “emotional eating,” and yes, it can be a major factor but it’s not universal, and it can show up in unexpected ways. You can eat to soothe loneliness or sadness, but you can also eat because you’re happy, because you’re with friends, because you need to relax, because the TV is on, because you’re celebrating a good day. Or simply because you felt like it. “You only live once.” “Let me treat myself.” “Why shouldn’t I? Am I not free?”

So what is your reason?

When you put all these layers together - family, physiology, habits, environment, emotions, the picture becomes clearer. And only then can you begin to understand what is actually happening and how to step out of it.

Why does one person stop after two biscuits, while another feels as if their brakes are broken? Why do some people manage when others are around, but lose control when no one is watching? And then comes guilt, shame, disgust. A closed loop.

The first meaningful step is to acknowledge all these psychological and physiological layers. To explore how they work specifically in your life. To sort them out: where are the risks, where are the supports, and what is unnecessary or imposed from the outside.

And then, leaning on your strengths, begin to gently rewire your habits, naming everything that comes up along the way. It might be difficult emotions or your favourite chocolate bar, loyalty to traditions or fear of the fridge. There are no “unimportant” topics.

This path isn’t easy. It has ups and downs.
But it leads to a completely different quality of life and that change is permanent.