Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions

Hari talks to Dr. Vincent Felitti, a California doctor who worked with overweight patients. Vincent treated his patients by putting them on a diet where they mostly ate vitamin supplements. They lost weight, but regained it after leaving the program and suffered from anger, depression, or panic. One of his patients, given the alias “Susan,” said she started regaining weight when a man who knew she was married propositioned her.

Felitti discovered many of his patients began putting on weight when they experienced some kind of trauma: “Man of these women had been making themselves obese for an unconscious reason: to protect themselves from the attention of men, who they believed would hurt them” (132). From surveying his patients he found that they were motivated by the need to appear more physically intimidating and that weight “reduced people’s expectations of them” (133).

Felitti faced resistance from his colleagues, who theorized that his patients were making excuses. However, further research with data gathered by the Centers for Disease Control supported Felitti. It found that “for every category of traumatic experience you went through as a kid, you were radically more likely to become depressed as an adult” (135). Felitti came to believe that, like obesity, depression is a symptom of deeper problems and traumas.