do you have a good relationship with food?
Is it safer to trust food than people? With food we can decide when, where and how much we want it in our life and it is completely in our control. Food will be with us no matter how we feel, what we say, or how we look. It can be a constant in a world of change and will not leave us. When our exterior world of cultural pressures to have a certain body image, and wear a certain size, meets our inner world of feelings of insecurity and self doubt, an eating disorder can be the result. We can binge, purge, and perpetually diet, as our thoughts begin to obsessively focus on eating or not eating. Food can provide companionship, comfort and relief from pain and suffering.
What factors contribute to an increased risk of eating disorders? Certainly pressure from our constant bombardment from social media messages, magazines, and entertainment about looks and size can be influential. Celebrities and models provide idealized images of what we should look like according to social norms, and the endless stream of diets and food fads provide the method to the madness. Childhood sexual and physical abuse, attachment problems, the loss of caregivers, neglect and other traumas can leave us feeling deep pain with a drive to escape it. Food can become a safe comfort when the world is unreliable. Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder can push people to over exercise, eat limited amounts, or eat only foods they deem appropriate in a quest for perfection. When we have been shamed, abused, neglected, made to feel inadequate and lacking, and unloved, an eating disorder can be the result.
The period of adolescence can be a minefield as we discover who we are as we move towards independence. We begin to establish our identity and experiment with all the different cultural definitions of what will make us popular, accepted by our peers and beautiful. Dyeing our hair, wearing different styles of clothing and jewelry, tattoos and piercings all contribute to our developing image. We look to our peers for group identification and emulate what will enable us to fit in and be accepted. We are moving away from parental influence as we begin to create a new and different look. We are vulnerable to the shifting tides of the definition of beauty.
Our relationship to food can mirror our relationship with ourselves. We look to food to address the painful emotions we experience such as sadness, depression, anxiety, fear, feelings of rejection from those we care about, grief, abandonment, neglect, betrayal and sexual problems. Is our relationship with food based on healthy nurturing or is it neglectful and abusive? Do we use food to distract, punish, and hurt ourselves? These responses to our feelings can provide short term relief but they do not bring resolution to the turmoil we feel inside.
The path to healing our relationship with food starts with an awareness that the relationship is not a healthy and nurturing one. We begin to learn how to be more mindful of our thoughts, feelings and memories especially associated with food and our body image. We don’t challenge these thoughts or try to stop them, we simply let them come and go without attaching ourselves to them. We practice, practice, practice and slowly become better and better at noticing what negative messages and images our minds send us. We cultivate our curiosity surrounding our feelings towards food and the power it holds over us. If we have trauma that is keeping us from moving forward with joy and freedom, we can seek healing through trauma specific therapeutic interventions with a Mental Health professional. We can obtain hope and connection with a therapist and begin our journey with the goal of healing and enjoying our lives free of shame and secrets. We can increase our flexibility with our relationship with food and learn to tolerate and perhaps even embrace the imperfections of both ourselves, and others.
