About the Director
 

Mine is a journey that has taught me that fat is neither about lack of willpower nor lack of self-discipline. Fat is about issues of anger, self-esteem, families and the messages we all internalize about our own bodies. Being overweight is about loneliness, emptiness, and voids that we try to fill with food. Being fat is the price we pay for failure to live up to impossible, unattainable, and unreasonable standards that someone else has set for us.

I was born an underweight, premature infant to Italian parents. Reared in a family that associated food with love, I was fed without limits in order to gain the weight that would satisfy my parents' concept of an appropriately robust child.

It was this misguided situation, coupled with experiences of sexual abuse, which set the stage for what would be many years of emotional and physical conflict. My childhood and adolescence years were shaped by ever-escalating weight gains from the constant diet pills and programs. As I approached my 18th birthday, I weighed well over 400 pounds. Depression, anxiety, recurring panic attacks and the inability to work led me to seek treatment with a psychologist.

It was this connection with a therapist who had worked through her own eating disorder that helped me begin the process of unraveling my underlying issues. She brought to the treatment a deeper understanding of the problems that my eating disorder hid. The insights I developed became the turning point for me to understand that reaching a healthy weight was not about dieting but was about connecting with the reasons I used food. (My upcoming book will discuss these insights in greater detail).

The chronicle of that period, where I was involved in psychotherapy that ultimately led to my weight loss of more than 200 pounds, is my story of a true physical, psychological and emotional metamorphosis. My search for support and information on emotional eating showed a lack of resources and treatment programs available for me to continue healing. The more research I did, the more I realized that there was a need for a structured, compassionate program that dealt with more than just dieting for people trying to lose weight.

I returned to college and obtained a Ph.D in psychology with a specialization in eating disorders. In 1983 I developed Solutions Program for Eating Disorders as a safe haven where people from all walks of life can find a program where they are heard, understood and supported through their own journey to change their relationship with food and live a happy and full life.

Today, Solutions is a vital resource in the eating disorder community providing unique and exceptional treatment to hundreds of emotional eaters.

(Also a resource to the medical and lay communities, Dr. Porcello has written many articles, lectured extensively, hosted the Cable TV Show, "What's Eating You," and appeared as a guest on news and talk shows, including CNN. She has been written about in the New York Times, Newsday, and numerous other publications. Her memberships include: American Anorexic & Bulimic Association; International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals; American Psychological Association and American Diabetes Association.)