National Eating Disorders Awareness Week & Why I Chose This Specialty
When discussing my clinical specialty I’m often asked, “Why eating disorders?” The answer for me is both personal and professional, as so many things are in the field of psychology and mental health. It’s personal because I grew up in a culture that promoted constant dieting and a very thin ideal to girls starting at a very young age. The 90’s were all about Weight Watchers, Slim-Fast, and Wow chips (food companies, as part of the low-fat craze, replaced fat with olestra in chips, known to cause frequent diarrhea and cramping). Maintaining a certain size and tightly controlling your food intake were things to be applauded back then, normalized even. No one really talked about disordered eating or poor body image unless it was truly severe.
I remember peers who did suffer from serious eating disorders, and it seemed, at least in my teenage mind, that no one really knew what to do about it. Even at that age, I remember feeling that something was really “off”. This same culture that promoted bizarre diets (e.g., remember the Blood Type diet or the Subway Diet?) and emphasized an unrealistic/unhealthy-for-most aesthetic seemed to be linked to eating disorders, and yet people did not seem to be understanding this connection (or perhaps they refused to see it). It was as if the party line was: “Yes, you should diet and strive for thinness…but don’t get too carried away! And if you do, then go away and get treatment, but don’t talk about it too much…we don’t want our kids to get any ideas!” How incredibly confusing and damaging…and yet, this was the culture back then.
When I began graduate school years later, I never intended to focus on eating disorders. The specialty seemed to find me. I began working with numerous young clients with one major thing in common: a damaged relationship with food and with their bodies. Some had experienced major trauma, some had struggles with anxiety or depression, some had prominent relational dysfunction in their lives… but despite their many differences, they all seemed to have experienced a rupture in their mind/body connection, which led to profound body loathing and disordered eating. The relationships we have with food and our bodies play such a vital, integral role in the human experience, doesn’t it make perfect sense that when humans are in pain, these relationships would be indelibly affected? Especially when one considers the toxic culture in which many of us grew up regarding food and body image? I began focusing on eating disorders more and more in my clinical work, learning all I could about the origins, the symptoms and pathology, as well as effective treatment methods for the full spectrum of eating disorders.
Flash forward many years later, and I am now a mom of three, and I have specialized in this field for close to twenty years. I still love talking about our relationships with food and our bodies. I find these relationships to be “windows” into our human experience in general: how we relate to ourselves, our emotions and our needs, as well as how we relate to others and to the world around us. I am more committed now than ever to the prevention of eating disorders and poor body image for this next generation, and to helping individuals heal and thrive with their overall mental health.
It’s National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, and I hope you’ll join me in spreading the message that eating disorders are both preventable and treatable. It will take all of us to change our culture- to move away from the notion that bodies should be controlled and critiqued to gain societal approval and towards a more mindful, compassionate, and inclusive relationship with our bodies and food. If you or someone you know is struggling, here are some some helpful resources. Please reach out for support if you need it.
https://www.theprojectheal.org/
https://www.allianceforeatingdisorders.com/