Eating Disorders Awareness Week

We are over halfway through an incredibly important time of the year for me and maybe for you reading this, as well as 1.6 million other men, women, boys, girls and transgender in the UK ALONE. It's Eating Disorders Awareness Week. I want to discuss two areas with you: 

1) The picture society has unintentionally created for eating disorders.

2) Functional or 'mainstream' disordered eating. 

https://www.b-eat.co.uk/

1. My Puzzle Theory

Firstly I HATE puzzles. Maybe this is why. 

This imaginary, very strict puzzle makes a picture of what an eating disorder looks like. The pieces have to fit exactly in order to use them.

What happens if one puzzle piece has the pattern on it that may match the picture, but one of the sides is broken and so it doesn't fit with any of the other pieces? You don't use it for your puzzle because then it ruins the picture you want to copy. What happens next? You just don't use the little broken piece. Instead there is a hole in your picture, because it might be too difficult to fix a broken piece or to try and understand why it was broken in the first place. 

I was a slightly broken puzzle piece. I didn't fit the exact social criteria for "bulimia", or some of the diagnostic criteria for that matter. Generally both of these have a picture of what an eating disorder should look like, and individuals are like puzzle pieces in that if you can't fit them to the other pieces of the puzzle, they won't make the picture. 

Problems with this

Aside from being a weird analogy (feel free to suggest alternatives, I was late to my lectures and had to come up with something quickly), one issue with this extremely simplistic, physical way of identifying these mental illnesses is simple; humans are complex as f***. We are the most complicated, confusing, intricate, irritating and most amazing creatures on the planet, but we break. And what we don't realize often enough is that people don't always break in the same place. Not all sufferers will look like the stereotypical example of what an eating disorder is. Some people do, but a lot of people don't.

The second issue with this theory is that an eating disorder isn't physical, we can't take a picture of it.

"But they don't look like they have an eating disorder?"

Because it's not an appearance.  

Chrissie Wellington- World Champion triathlete,
Anorexia and Bulimia

I didn't look like I forced myself to be sick after I ate, or that I'd woken up at 3am the night before to eat anything I could get my hands on just to then purge it all once I couldn't fit anymore in. I didn't lose 2 stone, I wasn't obsessed with the topic of body image, in fact I avoided it all together. I wasn't bullied, my parents weren't divorced and I wasn't particularly moody. I was athletic and sporty, I had good grades, I studied hard, I had the best friends anyone could ask for, I went on exotic holidays with my family, I'd had a boyfriend. I was normal. 

But I didn't wear bulimia on my body for the world to see, because it wore me. I was its host. Its puppet. Why do we focus so hard on what we can see physically in an illness that is entirely mental? I'll tell you. Because it's easier. It's easier to try look for cracks in the surface than to start chipping away underneath. I was so guilty of this. I thought that because I didn't 'look the part' for an eating disorder, that there was no way in hell I could have one. My pieces just didn't fit the puzzle.

Now what about men? Men are strong. Men don't stick their fingers down their throats whilst crying over the toilet bowl.  Men don't starve themselves or weigh themselves every morning, lunchtime and bedtime. Men don't take diuretics or laxatives to make the number on the scale smaller. Men don't cry. 

But if this were so then why are men doing it? There seems to be a whole other picture for men, and that picture doesn't include eating disorders. 

Freddie Flintoff- Cricket player, Bulimia

The National Eating Disorder Association has found that 800,000 men have suffered with bulimia at some point in their lives. Out of all eating disorders, men make up 20%. 

Dennis Quaid- Actor, Anorexia

Realistically this figure is a lot higher, however due to this picture we have unintentionally created for men to look like, the majority of male sufferers will hide their disorder. 

The anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder wear them as a disguise for years (and for some, forever).  

2. 'Functional' Eating Disorders

"Anorexia is without a doubt a serious eating eating disorder, but there is a hell of a lot of mainstream disordered eating going on out there."

- Emma Woolf, Ministry of Thin

Author of Apple a Day 

Social media is sprawled left right and center with people being 'healthy'. I'm currently taking a psychology module on Health Psychology, so this area is particularly interesting to me. What does healthy actually mean?

"A state of total physical, mental and social well-being, and NOT merely the absence of disease or infirmity."  

If your day-to-day life is preoccupied with...

• what time you're going to eat
• what you're going to eat
• where you're going to eat
• where you shouldn't eat
• what is safe to eat
• what is bad to eat
• what you can't eat later because of what you're about to eat now
• whether you're going to skip a meal because of what you've eaten
• how many grams of fat you're about to eat
• how many grams of protein you've eaten
• how many meals have had carbohydrates in them
• how many hours of exercise is going to burn off your meal last night
• how many calories you've eaten in the last week
• how many calories you've eaten this morning
• how many calories you're going to eat tomorrow

You get the idea. If these sound like you, you are engaging in disordered eating behaviours. You are overthinking and over-complicating such a simple, primal behaviour to the point at which it begins to dictate what you can and cannot do. Of course I fully appreciate that some individuals have medical conditions where they for instance cannot eat gluten, or are trying to gain or lose weight for medical reasons, or are simply trying to be a bit healthier. However the danger with any kind of extreme focus on food is that the control you exert over yourself becomes addictive and obsessive...

If you find yourself in a position where you are unable to function without engaging in these kinds of behaviours, please take a moment to think about the definition of 'healthy' I gave you earlier, and whether or not you can say with your hand on your heart that you are physically, mentally and socially healthy.

What I've learnt about eating

Over the past couple of years I have learnt lot about what a relationship with food should be. The most important thing for me has been that food should not be complicated. Eat when you're hungry, stop eating when you're full.

The second thing is to not do food maths. Or any kind of maths if you can avoid it (I just hate maths). What a lot of mainstream disordered eating and full blown eating disorders have in common is that they try and introduce maths into food. Maths is right or wrong.

2+2= 4. Correct.
2+2=8. Wrong.

eat clean cake

If you start using maths with your eating habits, such as calorie counting or grams counting, there becomes a right and wrong with food. And food isn't wrong. Ever. It doesn't matter what type of food it is (unless you're allergic or intolerant- sorry!). Food lets you run, explore, workout, create, write, photograph, indulge, treat and enjoy yourself.

I have removed numbers from my life entirely. I haven't weighed myself in over 2 years now, and I have absolutely no intention of doing so. I haven't calorie counted, I don't get my BMI checked, I don't keep a food diary, I just don't let myself be defined by a number on a scale or a packet anymore.

If you're struggling with separating your self-worth from calories and kilograms, try removing a number from your life. It doesn't have to be it all at once, maybe start with trying not to weigh your food, or to not look at calories on drinks. Small things first.

Take home message

I'll keep this short (apologies for the length of this- it's a lot longer than I intended, I get quite carried away, like I am right now)

Everyone is different. Try not to fit people to pictures. Don't do puzzles. Maths is for school not for food.

If you think your eating behaviour is affecting your day-to-day life, don't dismiss it because you don't think its 'serious' enough to be an eating disorder. Eating is our most basic human instinct, and it shouldn't be difficult and complicated. Talk to someone, write it down, call Beat's helpline 

0345 634 1414 or 0345 634 7650- they are incredible and they will not turn you away. 

LASTLY- as it's Eating Disorders Awareness Week, please be open minded. Do a little bit of reading about eating disorders, buy yourself a chocolate bar, treat yourself to a takeaway, and talk. 

Chips are potatoes. Potatoes are vegetables. Chips are salad.