Gaining

Has anyone ever thought that getting off on eating and gaining weight might be some sort of psychological disorder? Are we all just sick?!

As far as I can determine, psychologists consider feedism a "paraphilia" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_paraphilias), not a mental illness. Of course they often disagree about what is and what isn't a mental illness (e.g. homosexuality was once considered an illness).

I'm not a psychologist but it seems to me there's a clear evolutionary explanation for feedism:

Traditional societies often had/have periodic food shortages. Some of these societies developed the custom of gorging themselves during times of plenty to gain enough fat to get through the lean times. In such a society, feedism would be adaptive, since it would help encourage people to eat enough during those times of plenty. Thus there would be evolutionary pressure for people to have feedist tendencies.

Depending on your particular ancestry, you may or may not inherit this tendency and if so it may or may not be triggered by your own particular environment. So some people are feedists and some aren't.

So I wouldn't call this a sickness. You could call it an "atavism" since modern societies don't have periodic food shortages. Nowadays food is shipped and stored, which is much more practical than gaining fat.

Damn....just when I thought I was sort of normal with this exciting sexual arousal thing called loving Fat and weight gain.

It is kind of true....not many people would think we were totally normal especially if we let out our totally true kinks with weight gain other than diluting them down so much. For example my wife knows I like her heavier and like seeing her gain weight.....which we don't discuss all the time...but she knows and she already thinks is kind of weird .....but if I told her I would love for her to get to 300 or 350 Lbs. (gaining 100-150 Lbs.) ......she may not only think I am really weird but .....well you get the picture.

That's why this board is pretty cool to discuss our totally real feelings with regard to this interest of weight gain.

I don't necessarily understand the psychology behind wanting to get fat but I don't think it's a defect or illness.

So autonomous vehicles are going to be out there plenty in 2020 they say....so hopefully having a really Fat wife by your side will be the envy again as well.
Now if I can only talk my wife into this to gear up for 2020 and before we get there for her to tip the scales at 350 Lbs. so we will be the envy of all (Hopeful smiles)

I have a B.A. in psychology. It's not a mental disorder.

Something that might help in understanding modern classifications of mental disorders (i.e., the DSM 5) is that a big purpose of having a "diagnosis" is to bill health insurance for treating it. In no way does this imply that something in the DSM is "wrong," but just that getting professional help is in that person's best interest. For example, gender dysphoria is in the DSM--NOT because there's something wrong with being transgender, but because transgender people benefit from services such as HRT and psychotherapy to alleviate their suffering just as antidepressants and psychotherapy aim to alleviate the suffering of those with depression. So, even though feederism is a "paraphilia," which is in the DSM as a general category, it's NOT because there is anything wrong with having a paraphilia, it's just because having a paraphilia might cause people enough distress that they can benefit from professional help, because they, say, worry that there is something wrong with them.

Interesting. So it's just in there so that if someone goes to a therapist all worried about it the therapist can look it up and say "It's not a mental illness...don't worry about it. That'll be $90."?

Lol, yeah, basically, if you're cynical. Which I'm not saying I'm not.

I don't know if any of you have this but I have compulsive over eating disorder.
They call it an eating disorder so is it physical or mental? who knows.
Some may just call it binge eating so there is a real grey area and it must be different for everybody.
I have gone to overeaters anon meetings and it didn't help,taken medication to curb it and that didn't help.