From my own life experience, there are different methods of self-medicating, and food or over-eating is one of them. The vast majority of obese people who considerably over-eat likely do so to distract themselves from mental pain or even PTSD symptoms, however briefly.

I utilized that method during most of my pre-teen years, and even later in life after quitting my (ab)use of cannabis and alcohol. [I currently ‘live’ with chronic anxiety and depression that are only partly treatable via medication.]

It’s an emotionally tumultuous daily existence; a continuous discomforting anticipation of ‘the other shoe dropping’ and simultaneously being scared of how badly I will deal with the upsetting event, which usually never transpires.

The lasting emotional/psychological pain from such trauma is very formidable yet invisibly confined to inside the head. It is solitarily suffered, unlike an openly visible physical disability or condition, which tends to elicit sympathy/empathy from others.

It can make every day a mental ordeal, unless the turmoil is treated with some form of self-medicating, which for me is prescription or alcohol [via wine]. Someday I could instead return to over-eating.