'My hunger to get well helped me treat others'
THEY say your school days are the best days of your life, but Ros Davies's childhood memories, filled with isolation and loneliness, triggered an unhealthy relationship with food which was to continue into her adult life.
Now living in Kidsgrove with her husband Keith, a 58-year-old home-tutor, and their three children Simon, aged 25, Anna, 22, and Rachel, 19, she grew up on a farm in Cornwall with her mum, dad and three older sisters.
She says: "I didn't have anyone to play with, so I started to think of food as my best friend from a very early age. I started to feel lonely."
But loneliness wasn't the only contributing factor.
"My mum was very conscious about her weight and I think the way she was affected me," she explains.
"I was overweight as a child, and while I wasn't too aware of it, mum did worry about me.
"Looking back I don't think she had reason to be worried," she adds. "I think if she had just left it I would have naturally found the weight that was right for me, but she always fussed about it."
Believing her daughter to have a serious weight problem, Ros's mum took her to the doctors, and by the time she was seven she had been placed on a strict diet and prescribed a course of slimming pills called Ponderax.
"I didn't really lose weight on the diet at all because I was just too young to be put on one, and I had no idea what the slimming pills did or didn't do" says Ros. "I didn't understand the concept and I didn't take it seriously. In truth, it just made me eat more secretly."
Having to deal with bullying at secondary school and a loss of self-confidence during her teens, food remained Ros's comfort despite the constant worry of what she could and couldn't eat. Her weight continued to climb, and at her largest she was a size 24.
"For most of my life I've been worrying about my weight. There were times when I got it under control and times when I didn't. I always seemed to be changing shape.
"It was as if food became an obsession," she adds, "but what I've learned is that while I was thinking about food, about what I could and couldn't eat, and feeling guilty or pleased about it, I was avoiding thinking about the emotional pain."
Struggling to address the issue, Ros's life reached an all-time low when she was diagnosed with clinical depression in the 1990s.
"I was severely depressed for about three to four years and was in hospital for 12 weeks," she says.
"People don't understand what depression is. They just brush it aside, but in all honesty it's a living hell and was pretty horrible for my family. I changed into a completely different person," she continues.
"My children were very small when it happened, and they suddenly found themselves with a mum who didn't want to know about life."
While being diagnosed with depression was a terrible thing to for both Ros and her family to live with, now she views it as a positive part of her life which has allowed her to get to where she is today.
"I suppose my outlook only really changed in the last three years," says Ros, who has since lost four stone in the last three years, bringing her to a healthier size 16.
"I think it was my outlook that pulled me out of it.
"I started to look at life differently and I started to accept that I do have a vulnerable side. I recognised that I did have a lot of strength and, ultimately, that I had enough strength to get through it."
And her experience made her realise she had other talents too, most importantly, an ability to listen to others, which led her to a new career.
"When I was ill people started talking to me about their own experiences with depression, and I found that I was a good listener," says Ros.
"It's all about working out what each person's emotional eating is all about, and for people to stop beating themselves up about using eating as a coping strategy."
She went on to take a counselling course, and later a masters degree, at Keele University, and now four years later she has become a successful counsellor and psychologist, helping men and women cope with issues such as emotional eating and depression.
"In terms of emotional eating, I think it is more of an issue for women than it is for men," she continues, "but I'm encouraging people to love themselves just as they are and not to measure their value in terms of what they weigh or what size they are.
"I've constantly been on diets and none of them suited me. Now I just don't believe in dieting because it's not about physical hunger, it's about emotional hunger.
"If, instead of eating, you can find a way to tolerate those difficult feelings, work through them or see them in a different way, you can eliminate that need for eating."
Ros will be holding a morning workshop on breaking free from emotional eating on Saturday, November 22, at the Dudson Centre, Hanley. For more information call 01782 787004 or 07855 160076.
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