Eating Disorders

Although the manifestation of eating disorders shows up as being overweight or drastically underweight in a physical sense, it is important to recognize the thoughts, emotions, and beliefs that underlie the distorted behavior.

Mistaken Beliefs

Persons with eating disorders may find some of the following as a part of their core belief system:

•   Food is the only dependable love I’ll ever get.
• There might not be enough, so I should eat it now while it’s here.
•   If I start something (eating a bag of Oreos, I might as well finish it.
•   If I keep myself fat, I won’t have to deal with sexual advances.
•   Nothing I do makes any difference, so I might as well eat something good now.
•   I’m big boned. I have slow metabolism. Eating problems are heredi-tary. I might as well be resigned to my situation.
•   Food is the one thing I have control of, so don’t mess with me and my eating.
•   If I’m thin enough, I can attract a potential lover.

You might be shocked at the depth of the distorted ideas about body

and food, but they might be true in the eating disordered person.

New Thoughts and Behaviors

Affirmations to counteract the previous statements are helpful in shaping better attitudes. For example,

“There is always enough for me” is better than “I should eat it right now, while it’s here.” “I attract loving people every day” is more hopeful than “If I’m thin enough, I can attract a potential lover.” A distorted body image can baffle the most intelligent person, making it difficult to really see what is in the mirror. Some eating disordered individuals do not have full-length mirrors anywhere in the house, preferring to see only the image from the chin up.

Some helpful adjustments to behaviors around food can include any of the following:

•   Use a smaller plate.
•   Arrange a very attractive table and place setting, so the meal is aesthetically pleasing.
•   Exercise a little every day. Gradually increase the time of activity.
•   Broaden sensory pleasures to include music, fragrance, movement, and art.
•   Seek emotionally intimate relationships with others.
•   Attend support groups with people who are working toward similar healthy aims.
•   Be aware of triggers to eating difficulties-isolation, holidays, weekends.
•   Cultivate a phone buddy system to ensure an immediate contact when needed.
•   Don’t weigh every day or several times a day. Weight normally fluctuates.

Prepare yourself for buried emotions as weight issues begin to resolve.

Extra weight is a good buffer for repressed memories and self-esteem problems. Relationship issues that were heretofore too frightening may present themselves the need for a divorce, a new job, or healthier boundaries with overbearing relatives.

Some foods increase the appetite and are best avoided if one is trying to lose weight. Known culprits are caffeine and sugar. Cutting these out makes it easier to manage healthy eating.

Beliefs about Your Body

As human beings, it is natural to be deeply influenced by the attitudes and beliefs of family and the surrounding culture. Some of those inherited beliefs are quite strong and difficult to change, especially when they are unconscious. Some questions you may want to consider include:

•   How do beauty and fashion magazines make you feel?
•   What is the prevailing body type in your family?
•   What comments were made about your body when you were a child?
•   In your home now, are bodies, weight, eating, and health discussed, and how?
•   Do you like your body? Are there parts you don’t like?
•   What kind of impact do family and cultural influences have on you?
•   What is your ideal weight, and is it attainable?
•   How does your gender relate to weight?

• How does your body and weight relate to your cultural background?

Pause and Reflect

It can be helpful to stop for just a moment when you are overtaken by the urge to demolish a bag of chips. Instead of reacting reflexively, think for a moment about what is going on and try to name the emotion. Is it fear, loneliness, sadness? Emotional triggers for eating tend to be experienced Prepare yourself for buried emotions as weight issues begin to resolve.

Extra weight is a good buffer for repressed memories and self-esteem problems. Relationship issues that were heretofore too frightening may present themselves the need for a divorce, a new job, or healthier boundaries with overbearing relatives.

Some foods increase the appetite and are best avoided if one is trying to lose weight. Known culprits are caffeine and sugar. Cutting these out makes it easier to manage healthy eating.

Beliefs about Your Body

As human beings, it is natural to be deeply influenced by the attitudes and beliefs of family and the surrounding culture. Some of those inherited beliefs are quite strong and difficult to change, especially when they are unconscious. Some questions you may want to consider include:

•   How do beauty and fashion magazines make you feel?
•   What is the prevailing body type in your family?
•   What comments were made about your body when you were a child?
•   In your home now, are bodies, weight, eating, and health discussed, and how?
•   Do you like your body? Are there parts you don’t like?
•   What kind of impact do family and cultural influences have on you?
•   What is your ideal weight, and is it attainable?
•   How does your gender relate to weight?

How does your body and weight relate to your cultural background?

Pause and Reflect

It can be helpful to stop for just a moment when you are overtaken by the urge to demolish a bag of chips. Instead of reacting reflexively, think for a moment about what is going on and try to name the emotion. Is it fear, loneliness, sadness? Emotional triggers for eating tend to be experienced mostly mentally. For example, one gets a sudden urge for ice cream, deep fried chicken, or something else that is associated with comforting times in the past. Real, physical hunger is situated more in the stomach with the typical growls that can embarrass you in a staff meeting or other public place. This type of appetite occurs several hours after a meal.

Emotional hunger continues, even when you are physically full. It’s one of those times that you cant get it quite right and keep grazing until the right combination of tastes and a sense of fullness suggest you might stop. By then, a lot has been eaten. Emotional eating might be followed by feelings of guilt, shame, and remorse. Physical eating has no such emotional overtones.

Emotional eating can sometimes be forestalled by having good, nutritious foods on hand to eat when you are hungry, such as chilled vegeta-bles, hummus, and fresh fruits. In other words, eat real food, not junk food that distorts your taste buds and appetite signals. If you happened to see the movie Super Size Me, you saw graphic evidence of how a steady diet of junk food sets up cravings for more and more junk food. It’s as if the cells become retrained, forgetting the natural intelligence that usually resides in your DNA.