Sex abuse victims struggle to lose pounds put on as protective measure
I recently wrote a Facebook post asking about sexual abuse and the link to obesity. I thought I might get a few messages, but was surprised when more than 150 people — including a few men — shared their stories.
“I was sexually abused by a babysitter at age five, and by my cousin from ages eight to 13,” said Sarah Fitzsimons, 38, from Colorado. “I always felt like my parents didn’t do anything to protect me.”
Fitzsimons says the focus in her family was the way she looked. She recalls being referred to as “the thin, pretty one” out of five siblings. After the abuse started, she used food as a coping mechanism, she said. “It’s what comforts me. It was the one thing I could control.”
Now about 80 pounds overweight, she says “being fat feels safer, but it doesn’t feel great.” Fitzsimons says she’s interested in weight loss, but that she feels her size prevents unwanted sexual attention. This is not to say that body fat prevents sexual assault; it doesn’t. For her, she has found there is less lewd commentary from men about the way she looks when she is carrying extra pounds.
In the early 1980s, Dr. Vincent Felitti uncovered the connection between “adverse childhood experiences” (ACE) and a host of negative physical and mental health outcomes, obesity included.
“We stumbled into this by accident” said Felitti. He was running a major obesity program. He told me about a woman who weighed 408 pounds. Through a fasting protocol, they helped her get down to 132 pounds. “She stayed there for several weeks, then suddenly regained 37 pounds in only three weeks.”
The woman had a history of sleepwalking as a child. During the weight regain, she would go to bed with a clean kitchen and wake up to a messy one. She was sleep eating. Felitti endeavoured to get to the bottom of it.
He learned her grandfather raped her repeatedly between the ages of 11 and 20, then she put on weight. After Felitti helped her lose weight, an older, married man at work began making inappropriate and highly suggestive remarks regarding her new shape. The unwanted sexual attention triggered the regain, he said.
Felitti began interviewing patients about adverse childhood experiences and found a significant connection to obesity. He presented his findings to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which, after some reluctance, he said, became involved in studying the connection in depth.
Ten different events were analyzed, including sexual abuse, intense emotional abuse, intense physical abuse, major emotional neglect, being raised by an alcoholic or drug abuser, and growing up in a home where a mother was physically abused. More than 17,000 people were surveyed and followed for 20 years.
“The relationship to obesity is very powerful,” Felitti said, referring to it as a public health paradox, because, “for these people, there are benefits to obesity: it is sexually protective, physically protective and socially protective.”
When people gain weight due to ACE, it’s even more of a struggle to lose pounds.
“I started to eat my feelings,” says Nicole Didier, 34, of Kansas, who has been struggling with her weight for 30 years.
“It was my aunt’s husband. It started when I was four. I felt like it was wrong, but he said they’d be mad at me if I told.”
Add to this an abusive, alcoholic stepfather who used domineering methods to control her food intake, and by third grade, Nicole was gaining weight.
Didier says food was a source of comfort during a difficult time. “Feeling unattractive because of my weight was protective. I was 470 (pounds) and suffering health consequences,” she said. “I’ve lost 70 pounds since March, but it’s such a tough road.”
Obesity isn’t the only connection to ACE. Addiction, suicide, heart disease and a host of auto-immune disorders also can be related.
Phoebe Adams, 44, of Arizona, wanted to kill her abuser, if only to protect her little sister.
Her uncle and cousin were also guilty.
She said most of the sexual abuse was committed by her stepfather. It started when she was five and continued until she was 16.
Adams started puberty at 10. A recent study of 173 girls in the Journal of Adolescent Research shows childhood sexual abuse can trigger early puberty. That’s also when she began to gain weight.
“My stepfather would call me fat and ugly and no one would ever want me.
“He said I was lucky for the attention he gave me.”
Once a week, he would come to her room, even picking the lock on her door to gain entrance.
Her mother walked in on the abuse when Adams was 16. “She flew into a rage and kicked him out that night.”