For some people, lunch is never just lunch. Every bite can bring rules, guilt, promises to compensate tomorrow, and the exhausting sense that one choice has ruined the day. Noelia Alonso Cabarga, a psychologist specializing in eating and mental health, says that struggle is often mistaken for weak self-control.
She launched Kintsugi Institute in early 2026 to bring psychology, eating behavior, and mental health into the same conversation. Her central question sounds simple, but it changes the focus.
Instead of asking only what someone eats, she asks what eating may be helping that person manage.
Obesity is not a character flaw
The public health data give that question urgency. The World Health Organization reports that one in eight people worldwide lived with obesity in 2022 and describes it as a chronic condition that can return after improvement, shaped by genetics, brain biology, behavior, food access, marketing, and the wider environment.
That is a much bigger picture than willpower.
The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases also lists sleep, medications, health conditions, long-term stress, family history, genes, and a person’s surroundings among the factors that can affect weight.
Food and movement matter, but they do not operate in a vacuum. Real life includes night shifts, caregiving, limited grocery choices, depression, and plain exhaustion.
What food may be doing
“Food is much more than food,” the psychologist said. Meals can carry family rituals, early memories, comfort, and learned ways of calming down. A snack after a brutal workday may be responding to hunger, stress, loneliness, or several things at once.
That is why “I eat because of anxiety” is only a starting point, because anxiety can mean conflict at home, grief, poor sleep, low self-worth, or pressure that has been building all day. What is the food doing in that moment? That question is where useful work begins.
Why another diet may miss the point
Many people who seek her help have spent years losing weight, regaining it, and returning to stricter rules. “People assume those who are overweight or have obesity lack willpower. I believe the opposite,” she said, pointing to the enormous effort repeated restriction can require.
In her practice, the first step may be to pause dieting and rebuild awareness of hunger and fullness before adding more instructions. This is not universal medical advice or a reason to abandon needed treatment.
In practical terms, her problem is with punitive restriction, not individualized care that may include nutrition counseling, behavioral treatment, medication, or surgery.
Weight stigma can deepen the harm
Blame is not harmless. A 2024 systematic review in Body Image brought together 242 articles and found a consistent association between greater weight stigma and more disordered thoughts and behaviors around eating.
The review showed a strong pattern, although association alone does not prove that stigma caused every outcome.
The psychologist argues that society often recognizes suffering in anorexia while continuing to blame people with obesity, but the comparison needs care. Obesity and eating disorders are not the same diagnosis.
Still, the National Institute of Mental Health makes clear that eating disorders can affect people who are underweight, average weight, or overweight.
The overlooked middle ground
A person does not need a formal diagnosis for food to occupy an unhealthy amount of mental space. Constant calorie calculations, fear after eating, repeated compensation plans, episodes of eating with a sense of lost control, or disconnection from hunger can all signal distress.
The visible body may draw attention, while the private struggle remains hidden.
The project describes this as a continuum of suffering, not a single disease running from anorexia to obesity. That distinction matters. Body size alone cannot tell a clinician whether someone has an eating disorder, and an occasional emotional meal is not automatically a psychiatric condition.
Experience shaped the approach
Before training in psychology, she worked as an economist in the financial sector and later in staff development. Her career change was also personal. She experienced an eating disorder herself and says therapy played a central role in her recovery.
That history informs a model that looks beyond the plate to anxiety, depression, sleep, movement, time spent sitting, and daily routines. The aim is not to chase a certain appearance.
It is to understand how mental and physical health interact, while recognizing that lifestyle support does not replace appropriate clinical treatment.
Eating with attention
A healthier relationship with food, in this view, is not perfect control. It means noticing hunger, fullness, taste, texture, and the pace of a meal, then finding other responses when the real problem is loneliness, conflict, or stress.
Simple in theory, but often difficult in a kitchen filled with phones, rushing, and old rules.
After summer 2026, the psychologist plans retreats where patients can practice eating without screens and with more attention to their bodies. The retreats are planned services, not published clinical trials, so their benefits should not be assumed in advance. Still, the idea captures the project’s broader purpose.
At the end of the day, the scale may be visible. The distress often is not.
The original profile was published by La Vanguardia.
