In a wee break from my incessant doom scrolling watching democracy, human rights, and basic decency fall to the wayside as too many embarassments who never got the love, validation or education they needed become more and more brazen in their hate, violence, mysogony , homophobia and bigotry I decided to focus on something productive. It is not the lead in expected for a small blog about mental health, but it is what it is.
Eating disorders are so very common in society, especially among women, that most of us don’t even recognize the signs or introductions to them. Simply because in a sexist world where women are supposed to look a certain way, rather than be healthy, healthy food is twice the cost of unhealthy food and everything is fucking processed….yes healthy food too…disordered eating has become the norm. We only really notice it when it goes to the extreme , and even then, we may still encourage distored eating and harmful patterns by praising someone’s physical appearance.
So, where is the line between that restrictive diet or disordered self view to an eating disorder? Eating disorders are defined as disruption to the eating behavior with excessive concerns about body weight that impairs physical and psychological functioning. Unsurprising, eating disorders are associated with high rates of morbidity and mortality. The most well known, and well studied of these disorders are anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, but there are multiple other forms of disordered eating. These include binge eating disoreder, avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder, pica, purging disorder, night eating syndrome, atypical anorexia, subthreshold bulimia and binge eating and orthorexia.
While the exact reason for who will develop an eating disorder is difficult to pin down, there are multiple factors at play. For instance, biological factors such as genetics and neurobiology. Serotonin plays a significant role in appetite and mood regulation, and one’s individual serotonin levels can impact these aspects. Psychological factors such as perfectionism, impulsivity, novelty-seeking, obsessive compulsions, and harm avoidance are common personality traits associated with such disorders. Other contributors include developmental factors such as early puberty and childhood sexual abuse play a role. But perhaps one of the biggest clusterfuck of influences are socio-cultural factors that impart a prefrence for thinness, slim bodies and constant promoton of such idealogoies starting at younger and younger ages play a significant role in influencing countless peoples eating behaviors.
While the best interventions for eating disorders include talk therapy, CBT, DBT, and medication, perhaps we would be better served to open discussions for the best preventions for developing eating disorders. In my humbliest of opinons this would start very young and in the fucking home with a simple act of parents allowing their children to learn when they’re full.
It’s a bit of a mental fuck for parents to not push their children to finish their meals and clean their plates, because any parent can tell you that those little fucks develop tummy aches the second they need to eat their veggies, will only eat 3 foods , and will hound you incessently for a snack 30 seconds after they were too full. On top of that, nobody wants to waste food, and tossing it is the same as throwing out money. But, if you use your knowledge of your child and add some patience, you may be able to help them and learn when they are full. Once you achieve that the biggest recommendation is to help them develop a healthy relationship with food….such as there are no bad foods, learning about nutrition and including balance in diets…this also includes modeling for them a healthy relationship with foood as well as developing a healthy and positive self-view.
….until next week
herewesayf&@#k!!! 