Weight loss in Kuwait: the missing piece
Kuwait has one of the highest obesity rates in the world: more than a third of men, nearly half of women. The medical system answers with weight loss programmes, surgery and now injections. What almost nobody treats is the relationship with food itself, and that is precisely where the problem lives. Dr Philippe Jacquet holds a doctorate in male eating disorders, has worked for twenty-five years in eating disorders and addiction, and offers that specialist expertise to Kuwait by secure video: a London Harley Street expert, from your own home.
What food is doing for you
Nobody binges for pleasure. The binge, the night eating, the secret eating, the grazing that never stops: they are all doing a job. Soothing pressure. Numbing feelings that have no other outlet. Filling an emptiness that has been there far longer than the weight. This is why diets fail so reliably: they remove the food and leave the job vacant. And it is why the new injections, for all their power, change less than they promise: the appetite goes quiet, but what the appetite was managing does not. Dr Jacquet has written extensively about this: what happens when the medication silences the hunger but not the need.
Men, weight and silence
Men in Kuwait carry a particular version of this struggle: the weight is visible, the reasons are unspeakable, and help is something other people seek. Dr Jacquet’s doctoral research is specifically on eating disorders in men, and his consulting room is full of men who never called it an eating disorder: the businessman who eats in the car where nobody sees, the father whose weight rises with every promotion, the young man punishing himself in the gym for what he ate at midnight. Men’s eating disorders are his specialism, not a sideline.
Where food and addiction meet
Very often the man with the food problem also drinks, or gambles, or works compulsively; in rehab, addiction and eating disorders are treated in the same group, in the same place, because they are the same architecture with different materials. Dr Jacquet has spent twenty-five years in exactly this overlap: eating disorders and addiction together, one clinician, one confidential relationship.
Beginning
A first conversation is confidential and without commitment, by secure video on Kuwait time, in English or French. Book here.
Common questions
Is binge eating an eating disorder?
Yes, and it is the most common one, especially in men. Recurrent episodes of eating large amounts, often at night or in secret, followed by shame, are not a willpower failure: they are a recognised clinical condition with an effective treatment, and it responds to psychotherapy.
I am on weight loss injections. Why would I need therapy?
The injections quiet the appetite; they do not ask what the appetite was for. For many people food was doing a job: soothing stress, filling an emptiness, managing feelings that had no other language. If that job is left unattended, it moves: to alcohol, to spending, to another compulsion, or back to food when the medication stops. Therapy treats the job, not just the appetite.
Do men get eating disorders?
Constantly, and they are the least likely to seek help. Dr Jacquet's doctorate is specifically on male eating disorders, and much of his practice is men who have never said the words out loud: the night eating, the secret eating, the gym punishing the body the food comforted. The first conversation is often the first time it has ever been spoken.
How does treatment work from Kuwait?
By secure video, in English or French, on Kuwait time. The work is psychotherapy: understanding what food does for you, treating what sits underneath, and building a different relationship with eating, the body and yourself. In-person sessions are available at Harley Street in London when you travel.