Excess weight: spiritual meaning and emotional causes

What excess weight is

Excess weight means carrying more body fat than is considered healthy for a person's height and build. Doctors usually call it overweight or, at a higher level, obesity, and use several measures together rather than one number. Weight on its own says little about a person's habits, character or worth.

Body weight is shaped by many things at once. Genes play a large part. Some medicines, including certain antidepressants, antipsychotics, steroids, epilepsy medicines and insulin, can lead to weight gain. Hormone conditions such as an underactive thyroid, polycystic ovary syndrome, Cushing's syndrome and the menopause can change weight and where it sits. Short or broken sleep, long-term stress, pain or illness that limits movement, stopping smoking, pregnancy and the food, work and money around us all play a role too.

Carrying a lot of extra weight can raise the risk of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, joint pain, sleep apnoea and heart disease. A GP is the best place to start. They can look for a medical cause, check blood pressure and blood tests, and talk through support that fits you, which may include specialist services, talking therapy, medicines or, for some people, surgery. Weight stigma and shame are bad for health in their own right, and nobody deserves them.

The emotional meaning of excess weight

What follows is not a reason for weight, and it is not a way to change weight. It is a set of questions about how you feel inside, which you may or may not recognise.

A layer of protection

Spiritually, the body's stored fat is read as a layer placed between your inner self and the outside world. It can be linked to a wish to protect yourself: from remarks, criticism, situations that make you uncomfortable, or feeling exposed and vulnerable. There may be a gap between you and others. You may long to love and come close to people, and be very afraid of doing so at the same time.

In French, the word for fat (graisse) sits inside the word for being attacked (agressé). The pun points to the feeling of being under attack, physically or emotionally, and sometimes to the aggressiveness that can follow. If you have been hurt, abused or assaulted, the need to feel safe is real and deserves care. Talking to a doctor, a counsellor or a specialist support service is a good step, whatever your body looks like.

Filling an inner void

Food is also emotional food. Eating more than you are hungry for can be a way of filling an emptiness, a feeling of having been left, or loneliness. Spiritually, weight gain is often linked to a great emotional shock or an important loss: someone who left or died, or something you had to give up, such as a business, a project or a dream that mattered, like having a child. You may feel abandoned, or even guilty about the loss. The empty space can feel very hard to bear.

Keeping everything, just in case

Excess weight can also be linked to a deep sense of insecurity, emotional or material, and a need to store up in case of shortage. This feeling of lack can go back a long way, sometimes to early childhood. It can also show as holding on: to the past, to feelings you do not want to let go of, or to a need for others that keeps you in dependence.

Taking your place

When it is hard to take your place with your words and actions, the body may take more space instead. In French, someone who "does not carry the weight" (ne fait pas le poids) is someone who does not measure up. A larger person is also called a "strong" person (une personne forte). Spiritually, this can raise questions: do you feel you must be strong to survive? Do you feel you go unnoticed unless you take up room? Do you need to look imposing to keep people who might hurt you at a distance?

What feels risky about change

A useful question is what, if anything, you avoid or are protected from at the moment: certain activities, certain people, certain responsibilities. For some people, being more visible or more attractive feels unsafe, for example because they would have to say no more often, or fear being judged only on their looks. These questions are about safety and freedom, not about your size.

The way you look at yourself

Excess weight is also linked to being very hard on your own appearance: a small "imperfection" takes on huge proportions, and you can no longer see your qualities or what is attractive about you. That harsh inner gaze can feel like rejecting yourself, and it is painful in its own right. Shame about the body helps no one.

A gentler way to hold it

• Express what you feel. Let sorrow, anger and fear be spoken, written or shared, instead of stored.
• Grieve what you lost. If a loss or an abandonment sits behind the emptiness, give it time and, if you can, a person to hear it.
• Recognise your worth. Your value does not depend on your size. Name one quality you have, today.
• Take your place. Practise saying what you think and need, in small, safe steps.
• Trust yourself and life. Notice where you are waiting for something that does not come, and what you could give yourself now.
• Live from yourself. Worry less about what others will say or think. Your self-respect grows when your choices are your own.