If you have been dealing with food addiction for a while, the last thing you need to hear is another human being telling you to just get over it, have some self control and eat less already!
Some individuals are just plain rude and like to give advise about everything (including things they don’t know anything about). But there are also people who honestly intend to help us, but don’t know that their well meant advise can make us feel worse and sink even deeper into the eating disorder. It doesn’t help to take away food, count our calories for us, go on a diet with us or bring us every new diet that comes out. All these things just add to our stress level and self condemnation.
We have already tried all the diets and our answer does not lay in diets at all. The thing we need more than anything is acceptance, love, support and prayer. We have to figure the rest out with God and a professional who knows that we can’t just “get it together” already.
Just recently a lady told me that food is just a temptation, and overweight people should simply say NO. God helped me not to say anything, because words would have been wasted on this particular lady, but on my way home I prayed that God would grant me grace to “hold the advise”.
There were times when I gave people advise about things I knew nothing about and situations I have never been in. This advise giving can especially be going around when it comes to raising kids: As if any of us really know all the answers. I asked that God would help me to guard my mouth ( what goes in and comes out), but also search my heart for any pride that causes me to give unwelcome advise. After all, what is in the heart spills all over the place (my translation:)