As a doctor who treats people with eating disorders and addictions and coaches people with food and body image issues in The Anchor Program™, I see so many who are:
Plagued by food obsessions.
Worried about what to eat and what not to eat.
Feeling uncomfortable around food.
Suffering from not knowing what a normal meal is.
Dissatisfied with themselves, their bodies, and their lives.
These issues are a real epidemic in our society, and it's getting worse by the day. As a culture, it’s time we shed light on the real reasons these problems exist and begin to bring healing to ourselves, our families, and eventually our culture itself.
In this article, I want to introduce you to five simple ways we can begin making peace with food and our bodies. However, I first want you to understand some of the myths that surround this issue:
Diets Don't Work
Dieting is one of the major factors that corrupts our relationship with food. And diets don’t actually work for the vast majority of people.
Yes, you read that correctly!
As babies, we naturally enjoy food. We enjoy trying all different kinds of food; most of us are drawn to any food that is good and that tastes good. However, many adults have lost this joyful connection to food, and no longer truly enjoy eating. Our culture’s constant drumbeat about the need to be thin and the need to diet to become thin are two of the major culprits for the development of an unhealthy relationship with food.
However, back in 1992, a study by the National Institutes of Health concluded that diets do not work, and that the vast majority of people who intentionally lost weight by dieting had regained most or all of their weight back within five years. A 2007 UCLA study had similar findings. In 2020 yet another study was released, which was a review of 121 studies on over 14 different diets encompassing over 20,000 people, which once again concluded that popular diets simply do not work for the vast majority of people. This study concluded that while diets may be effective for short-term weight loss, over the long term weight loss is not sustained. Even with strict diets, where people are kept in controlled facilities and willpower is all but taken out of the equation, people see modest health benefits — but within a short period of time, they once again regain the weight they have lost.
At the end of the day, you can't pick the right diet, because it’s been proven that none of them work for the vast majority of people. And, whether through social stigma, marketing, or peer pressure, the motivation to diet is the number one factor involved with people developing eating disorders and disordered eating.
Marketing & Media Bias
There are billions of dollars being spent on marketing diets and food products to us and our children — and it’s hardly the healthiest food. Social media is also filled with influencers who push a product, but don’t have the education to know how harmful that product may be for you. If you surf the internet or open the newspaper, you’ll find countless articles and studies showing how deadly being in a larger body is for you. We're taught through marketing and social cues, on dating websites and career websites, that in order to be accepted in society, you need to look a certain way. I call it the “thin ideal,” and society seems to think that if you're not matching that, there's something wrong with you. In my work with people with eating disorders, this is one of the hardest things for people to accept when they themselves are not able to fit into this narrow standard.
The more important question is: Is living in a larger body actually bad for your health? Let’s look at the statistics:
One JAMA study says:
People with BMI of 25-30 are as healthy as those with “normal” BMI, and in fact have a slightly lower death rate.
In 87% of studies on people with BMI of 30-35, the majority were just as healthy as normal weight individuals.
In 67% of studies, the health risks for those with BMI 35-40 and over 40 were the same as those with “normal” weight.
Another 15-year $15 million NIH study was unable to prove that therapeutic lifestyle changes and weight loss could reduce the risk for strokes, heart attacks, and cardiovascular disease.
We also know that active people who are by BMI considered overweight or obese have lower rates of sickness and death than non-obese sedentary people.
We're finding that a lot of studies have had a “higher weight is tied to bad health” bias in them, and that many of these studies show an association between weight and health issues, but not a causation. Basically, even if people who are in the higher BMI categories are more likely to die or develop certain diseases, it does not mean that weight is the cause of those effects.
I think what the typical ad, article, or study does is divert attention away from the real problem. The real problem often begins in childhood, as the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study has demonstrated. Childhood adversity is strongly associated with high BMI in childhood and there is a strong relationship between development of binge eating and trauma. When a child has experienced abuse or neglect, for example, they may use food as a way to cope with what has happened to them. This survival strategy then becomes deeply engrained and often the original cause (trauma) is pushed in the background. Changing your size cannot heal what happened to you or the consequences of those childhood events. Dieting, then just exacerbates the sense of repeated failure and negative self-esteem that is already present.
Beginning to Heal
Needless to say, there’s a lot stacked up against us in our society when it comes to healing these issues. However, what are some things we can all do to cultivate and improve our relationships with food and our bodies right now here today?
1) Be More Aware of How You Use Food — For example, do you use it for stress relief? If yes, then ask yourself what you’re feeling when you’re stress eating. This is often difficult as many people with food and body image issues don’t trust or feel connected to their bodies. For this reason, it’s often necessary to seek help, especially if you have a history of childhood trauma. As you do this, you can also seek out healthier ways to help with your stress. Maybe it's seeing a therapist or doctor? Maybe it's to talk with a friend? Maybe it’s learning a breathing technique? When you begin to look deeper into your relationship with food and how food has helped you cope, that is the first step in beginning to connect the dots between “what happened to you” and how they manifested in food and body image issues.
2) Be Kinder Towards Yourself, No Matter Your Size — If you are living in a larger body and you're constantly yoyo dieting, remember the studies I’ve pointed out in this article, and recognize that you can be healthy no matter what size you are. Health is less related to body size than it is to lifestyle factors such as being fit, whether that fitness be through exercise or changing what you eat. Fitness is the best measure of health, not size.
3) Practice Michael Pollan's Quote — "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Focus on how your body feels when you eat whatever you eat. Be curious and gather information about your body’s response to food – to how much and what you eat. Pay attention to body cues of hunger and satiety and whatever you do, don’t judge yourself for eating what you eat – even if it’s something you consider a “bad food.” Self-judgment just perpetuates the shame and guilt that can lead to overeating or binging.
4) Teach Your Children to Honor Their Bodies — This breaks the intergenerational cycle of food problems being passed from parents to children, which I hear about all the time in my practice. It’s tremendously important to remember what we’ve learned from the studies mentioned above, and not to interfere with your child’s growth by encouraging them to diet. I’ve seen so many mothers and fathers who put their children on diets or take them to weight watchers at age 5 to 10. That child is still growing, and we don’t know what they’re going to look like when they grow up! To start children on a process where they begin hating their bodies or questioning their body’s wisdom at such a young age is extraordinarily difficult, and sets them up for a lifetime of struggling with food.
5) Practice Body Respect — Interrupt the negative self-talk you have about your body. And then, if you can, start to say something neutral about your body, and maybe even eventually positive! There have been numerous studies that show that if you have less body dissatisfaction, you're more likely to do the things that will promote good health with your body.
About Dr. Ross:
Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross, MD, MPH is an internationally known author, speaker, expert, and pioneer in intergenerational trauma's effect on one's body, brain, and beliefs. Ross teaches millions of people about eating disorder treatment and substance use disorder at Psychology Today. Her previous speaking engagements include prestigious leadership bodies such as TEDxPleasantGrove, the US Air Force Academy, International Association for Eating Disorder Professionals (IAEDP), Integrative Medicine for Mental Health (IMMH) Conference, US Journal Conference, American Medical Women's Association Conference, National Association of Treatment Providers, American Society of Addiction Medicine and more. She is the author of three books, the most recent of which is “The Food Addiction Recovery Workbook.” Make peace with food and body and heal from trauma at Dr. Ross’s online coaching website, The Anchor Program™.
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