From the author: The good news is that trauma from any time ago (childhood, adolescence and adulthood) can be healed in psychotherapy. Our brain always comes to the aid of a person during intense suffering and uses various defense mechanisms to preserve life and sanity. And then the unconscious decides to build up a protective “armor” between the person and the world, which can be dangerous at times. And the simplest solution to protect your own fragility and vulnerability may be “armor” from your own fat reserves. And this has its own primitive meaning: a large body does not look so fragile, and an overly large body is seen, if not frightening, then repulsive and unattractive. Despite the fact that the standard of living in different countries is growing, unfortunately, the quality of life very often leaves much to be desired. According to experts from the World Health Organization, by 2015 there will be 2.3 billion people suffering from obesity on the planet. The statistics are sad: since 1980, the number of obese people has doubled. The problem of excess weight is more pressing in economically developed countries. Currently, among the adult population in the world there are already 500 million people whose body weight is significantly higher than normal. Over the past 20 years, the average person has gained 16 kilograms. Statistics compiled by the World Health Organization are disappointing. By 2025, according to WHO forecasts, overweight and obesity will reach 40% of men and 50% of women. The life expectancy of obese people is 8-10 years shorter on average. At the same time, even a moderate reduction in body weight (by 5-10%) can significantly reduce clinical manifestations and increase the effectiveness of treatment of many diseases. As numerous studies in recent years have shown, among the many reasons that influence the growth of body mass index in adulthood, there are various childhood traumas: verbal violence (threats, insults); physical violence (beatings); sexual violence, including incest; violence in family; lack of a sense of security, care; experience of deprivation; divorce of parents; use of psychoactive substances by family members; presence of mental illness in family members; stay of one of the family members in prison; stay of one or two parents at work, away from the child. Unfavorable Childhood experiences (neglect and abuse), including exposure to interpersonal violence (physical, sexual, emotional), cause obesity in children, adolescents, and adults. While there is a growing understanding of the impact of childhood adversity on overall health and its consequences in adulthood, which are often accompanied by the development of chronic diseases, questions remain about what types of trauma a child is particularly vulnerable to. Risks associated with health consequences , including obesity, have different effects across the lifespan on men and women. But childhood adversity appears to be reflected differently when the topic is considered by gender. Research has shown that girls are significantly more vulnerable to childhood trauma, and this has more consequences for them in adulthood than boys' childhood trauma. that the child does not yet have enough of his own internal resources to overcome suffering and at the same time, for a number of reasons, he is deprived of external support from adults, which could help cope with suffering, support, comfort if there was someone nearby who cares for the child and calmed him down , would share his grief with him. And although there are potentially other methods of psychological defense and healthier solutions, the child does not have enough resources to use more mature forms of defense. Our psyche is structured in such a way that in order to help a person ( a child is more vulnerable than an adult) when suffering is intense, she uses various defense mechanisms to preservelife and psyche. And then the unconscious decides to build up a protective “armor” between the person and the world, which can be very dangerous at times. A simple solution to protect your own fragility and vulnerability can be “armor” from your own fat reserves. And this has its own primitive meaning: a large body does not look so fragile, but an excessively large body is seen, if not frightening, then repulsive and unattractive. The difficulty lies in the fact that the psyche does not care about seeing that the protection is from excess weight is not always appropriate. An increased body mass index is now constantly with a woman, even when she is sufficiently protected and next to her is a worthy man with whom she would like to be fragile and unprotected. Recent research shows that the more shock trauma a child or adolescent experiences, the more it increases their body mass index in adulthood. And this logic is clear: the more painful it was, the greater the distance between the child and the world. And one's own fat stores perform this task. The mechanisms linking early life adversity to the development of obesity in adulthood are complex and an active area of ​​research. Existing conceptual approaches to explain the impact of childhood trauma on health demonstrate that exposure to adverse and stressful conditions in the early stages of child or adolescent development leads to lasting changes in the systems that regulate the body's responses to the environment. Clinicians note adverse changes in childhood suffering on the following body systems: autonomic nervous system (ANS), hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) system, immune system, metabolic systems. Exposure to childhood trauma causes changes in the regulation of the autonomic nervous system, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal systems and hormones involved in energy metabolism, which play a role in regulating appetite and metabolism. Changes in the functioning of these neurobiological systems can lead people to have strong emotional reactions to future stress, which in turn can increase the risk for internalizing problems (bringing aspects of the outside world into a person's personal mental life), such as anxiety and depression. To cope with these repeated intense negative emotions, people with difficult childhoods may “anxiety eat” or overeat high-calorie foods. Dysregulation of these systems can lead directly to obesity, increasing body mass index, including creating a tendency to accumulate visceral fat (Miday & Matthews, 2011). Overeating problems are also aggravated by other behavioral factors associated with a difficult childhood, including: physical inactivity , poor eating habits, smoking, which may also be part of maladaptive responses to repeated stress or may be a general characteristic of an environment with a high risk of adversity, and therefore may either contribute to the formation of unhealthy behavior that has its roots in a difficult childhood and leads to excess weight body. Adolescence is a particularly dangerous time for merging with negative experiences in childhood, developing regulatory responses to stress, and accumulating weight. Increased physiological reactivity to psychosocial stressors (autonomic nervous system, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal system) occurs in adolescence. Rapid changes in growth and development occur concurrently with societal influences on behavioral patterns that contribute to weight gain, including decreased physical activity (Ellison, Edlaff, Dwyer, & Irving, 2007), increased consumption of high-calorie foods, including sweetened beverages (Burkey , Rockett, Gillman, & Colditz, 2004 ; Taveras et al., 2005 ). One retrospective study (50 years of follow-up) of adults found that the transition from adolescence to