Lifestyle Choices

Are you really? In an overweight society someone who is lean can feel like a freak when there is nothing wrong with her. And there can be real advantages to being thin. For instance, you are likely to live longer, be healthier, and excel in sports that demand skill. You also probably look great in your clothes.

If you are genuinely underweight, gaining weight is not just a matter of eating more jelly doughnuts. Many factors figure in why someone is excessively thin and all of them must be taken into account if you are going to do something about it.

Many thin women do not realize how little they actually eat. They assume that because they sit down at the table three times a day like everyone else, they should look nicely rounded too. But they are often more interested in conversation than in the food and, without realizing it, eat very little. Thin women also tend to skip meals.

Before you do anything to change your eating habits you need to be sure of just what they are and how much in a week you actually do eat. Carry a notebook around with you and record in it each snack or meal, what and how much you ate, how you felt and what you thought before and afterward, what things distracted you, and so forth. This will make you aware of what needs to be changed. It will also give you a clue as to what things may be worrying you. For worries, anxiety, and other stress- related thoughts and feelings play a large part in chronic underweight.

When a woman’s body is in a state of stress as she sits down to a table two things happen: first, her mind is taken away from the task at hand, namely eating, to conjecture about the past or future, and she loses interest in eating at all. Second, blood is drawn away from her internal organs that concern themselves with digestion—the liver, stomach, and intestines —and channeled into the muscles. In order to digest and assimilate food properly the blood supply has to be directed away from the muscles and into the digestive system, so that it will secrete the enzymes and digestive juices essential for normal processing. This will only happen if the stressed state is replaced by a state of relaxation—only then will you get the full nutritional benefit of the food you eat. For although many underweight women actually eat plenty, much of what they eat passes right through them instead of being assimilated.

Physiologically, the two most common reasons for excessive thinness are an overactive thyroid, coupled with weak, underactive adrenals, and an inability to digest and absorb food properly because of long-term stress, which inhibits the digestive and assimilation processes. In the first case, excessive eating of high calorie foods like sugar and concentrated starches only tends to stimulate the thyroid and make matters worse. Overindulgence in fatty foods is little better. It results in indigestion, which prevents you from eating a normal amount of any sort of food afterward. Eating excess protein from foods or liquid or powdered supplements may help temporarily to fill you out. This is why they give it to athletes who want to build their muscles. But when you tail off from the protein gorging, the new flesh is likely to disappear.

What does help is well-planned, regular meals, eaten slowly, quietly, and chewed thoroughly to aid the digestion of starches. Supplementary digestive enzymes with bile, hydrochloric acid, and lecithin taken temporarily can also be useful for underweight people whose digestion and assimilation is not functioning well.

And a relaxation or meditation technique practiced twice daily, preferably before meals, will do wonders to improve both appetite and assimilation.

Exercise helps too. Most underweight people get nowhere near enough because they fear it will make the problem worse. But half an hour’s walking morning and evening in the open air or running a mile or two a day not only improves the general physical condition but also releases tension and adrenalin buildup in the brain and heart, which can bring a hearty appetite.

Finally, take heart. Many lean, racehorse type women lose their excessive thinness in middle age as the activity of the thyroid subsides naturally. Then they begin to put on weight, sometimes far too easily.

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