If you’ve battled overeating—or food in general—you’ve likely chastised yourself more often than you can count.

Perhaps you’ve referred to yourself as undisciplined, weak, out of control.
Maybe you’ve attempted to remedy it with calorie counting, meal plans, and diets… or shame.
Perhaps none of it has had long-term effectiveness.

There’s a reason for that.

For many, overeating is not only about food.
It’s about comfort.
It’s about control.
It’s about attempting to fulfill a need no one taught you how to satisfy.

Should you have grown up in a home where love was inconsistent…
Where being comforted was uncommon…
Where having emotions was unwelcome…
Then perhaps your first way of cultivating safety was through food.

Food as Comfort, Control, and Escape

Finding methods to cope with your environment becomes a top priority when you’re a youngster and do not feel safe—whether emotionally, physically, or relationally.

Often, food is one of the most readily available means to accomplish that.

It can calm.
It can divert.
It can dull what seems too much.

At times, it’s about filling a void that was never intended to be filled with food.
Other times it’s about taking back control of a life that seems erratic or overly controlled by others.
And sometimes, it’s about finally feeling a sense of safety even if just for a moment.

It stands to reason that food became your go-to if no one was around, or willing, to support you in processing your feelings or console you during times of pain.

This doesn’t mean you’re somehow damaged.
It means you adapted.

Why the Cycle Feels So Hard to Break

You might eat when you’re stressed. Or when you’re lonely. Or bored. Or just tired.
You may do it unconsciously, not noticing it until later. When the shame sets in.

You might promise yourself you’ll do better, starting tomorrow.
But the feelings are still there when tomorrow arrives.
And the cycle starts again.

It’s not due to laziness.
Nor is it because you “don’t want it bad enough.”

Because food is more than just sustenance.

It represents safety.
It mirrors grounding.
When nothing else appears to work, it’s a means of self-regulation.

And for many people, it also provides a sense of protection.

When the Body Becomes a Barrier

Many people who’ve suffered trauma—especially trauma relating to their bodies, their boundaries, or their sexuality—develop a complex relationship with weight.

At times, the body carries weight as a form of protection.
It creates separation.
It reduces your visibility.
It makes you feel safe when safety has been elusive.

This is not always conscious.
But it’s real.
And it’s legitimate.

Should your body have learned to protect you by carrying weight…
That’s not a failure.
That is intelligence.

What Daoist Medicine Sees

From a Daoist point of view, overeating is not only a digestive issue.
It’s an emotional tactic.

Food becomes a means to mute feelings we don’t know how to process when our inner world becomes too overwhelming—too intense, too painful, too loud.
Not only to ignore them.
Not just to comfort them.
But really, to actually suppress them.

In Daoist healing, this is the deliberate production of dampness—not conscious in the daily sense, but profoundly ingrained.
The body discovers that weight is safer than intensity.
That fullness deadens sensation.
That a bloated, fuzzy stillness is better than the sharp edges of anxiety, fury, or grief.

So we consume.
Not because we’re hungry.
But because we’re attempting to avoid feeling.

Over time, the accumulation of dampness starts to affect clarity, vitality, even digestion.
The Spleen, the internal organ which transforms and moves what we consume, begins to become weighed down.
It cannot catch up with the mental and physical burden being hurled at it.

Liver Qi stagnation—from years of emotional suppression, unexpressed anger, chronic tension—keeps everything locked in place at the same time.
It drives the craving, increases the feeling that the only way out is to eat once again, and intensifies the emotional pressure.

Thus, the pattern repeats.
Not because you’re damaged.
But because your system devised a method to keep you going when the suffering had nowhere else to go.

Gentle Ways to Start Reconnecting

This is not about food control.
It’s about paying attention.

Recognizing what you feel when you grab for something to eat—even if you still consume it.
Taking three deep breaths before a meal, just to ground yourself in your body.
Eating warm, healthy foods that really feel good—not only in the present but also later on.

Perhaps most crucial is letting go of the notion that your body is the issue.

Your body has only ever sought to protect you.
Even when it doesn’t seem like it.

A Question to Sit With

What did eating provide me that I wasn’t receiving anywhere else?

That’s not an accusation.
It’s an invitation.
To be inquisitive.
To be gentle.
To start viewing your patterns as messages deserving of attention rather than proof of failure.

You don’t have to change everything right now.
You need not punish yourself into recovery.

You simply have to start with a bit more concern.
A bit more presence.
A little more awareness of what actually lies under the surface.

Repairing your relationship with food is also about repairing your relationship with comfort, with safety, and with yourself.