I learned that shame makes people sick. However, if exposed to light, it will die. Last week, I met women who were deeply ashamed of their inability to “eat normally.” But what does “eating normally” mean these days? Are you eating for your blood sugar levels, your gut microbiome, or your hormones?
We would like to think that the good old eating culture is over, but disordered eating is still prevalent. It’s just pretending it’s more harmful today. According to social media influencers, if you eat a certain way, you can lose weight, feel great, and clear your head fog. You too can feel confident about your food choices as long as you submit them to this app or wash them down with this pill.
Honestly, when we look at the array of contradictory “information” on social media and the crazy regimes we watched our mothers submit to (cabbage soup diet, anyone?) It’s strange that she had her period. It’s completely normal when it comes to food.
This week is Eating Disorder Awareness Week, so it seems like no better time to talk about how society contributes to this unhealthy relationship with food. We know that when people suffering from BED find the courage to go to their GP, they are more likely to be placed on dietary restrictions. However, this is the worst thing you can do to someone suffering from this disorder. It’s like force-feeding an anorexic person large amounts of food.
Eating disorders are not about weight, they are about the soul. Treatments that prioritize stabilizing weight over addressing the underlying issues causing the eating disorder are doomed to failure. The tragically widespread belief that obesity is a moral failing, rather than a symptom of a psychological problem, ironically only makes people sicker.
Shaming people who binge eat is no more likely to be successful than shaming people who don’t eat (and believe it or not, many people who have experienced anorexia nervosa suffer from ” BED develops during ‘recovery’ (because over-restriction can eventually lead to excessive overeating). .
Many psychotherapists believe that people unconsciously overeat in order to create a protective layer around themselves. They do it to escape and numb their emotions, just like people with anorexia or bulimia. Above all, these are diseases of control and self-loathing. Only when we understand why we use food as a tool of punishment and begin to see it as nourishment will weight begin to stabilize.
Even if they don’t have an eating disorder, too many people choose to restrict their diets and overeat, either through clean eating or by consuming ultra-processed foods that have more in common with drugs than the food their grandparents made. I spend my life going back and forth.
Food culture and the belief that being thin means you’re worth something means we’ve forgotten how to eat normally. We see carbohydrates as evil, blood sugar spikes as a defect, and nothing could be further from the truth. To a culture that fetishizes impossible beauty standards while ignoring the basics of human brain chemistry, people feel that they themselves have problems, when in fact their bodies are responding perfectly appropriately. It makes me feel that it is.
It’s time to be open and honest about how messed up we are when it comes to food. It’s not okay to think that everyone should be able to “eat normally” and that those who can’t are somehow lazy and undeserving of help and attention. No one can be healthy if they live in a society that thrives on shame. In fact, it only makes us all sicker and sicker.