Disordered eating - the normalisation of problematic behaviours.
Image reads: “You can be healthy at any size”
Let’s talk about disordered eating.
It is only something I am beginning to talk about because I have been in a deep learning/healing hole. I have learned to keep my healing to myself until I am ready to share, I used to share, share, share, and leave my wounds open for people to rub salt in (knowingly and unknowingly sometimes). Now I take a more conscious approach. I take my time, get curious and choose myself every step of the way.
What does disordered eating look like?
My experience looked a little like this:
Preoccupation with food
Tracking calories
Spending a bazillion hours in different supermarkets trying to find the ‘right’ products’
Restriction: cutting out MANY food groups
Exercising for multiple hours a day
Bingeing weekly
Moralising food as ‘good’ or ‘bad’
Society has normalised problematic behaviours…
These behaviours literally took over my life - I had an unhealthy obsession with being healthy. I was all about that ‘clean’ eating life, spewing rubbish out my mouth like a diet culture fountain. I lived that life for years and I had no idea that I had an issue. Society has normalised such problematic behaviours that when a friend tells you they are starving themselves and only eating within a small window of time each day, you actually consider doing it too because, um…. HeALtH?! Don’t be fooled, this is diet culture repackaged under the guise of HeALtH.
If you want to lose weight - you are NOT a bad person.
This topic can be SO triggering for many people but we need to ensure that we are supporting the person first. When we are fighting social justice issues such as weight stigma, we can easily get swept up in what we believe and doing ‘the right thing’ that whilst we are fighting hard to dismantle the system, those living under it’s oppressive force actually get stuck in the crossfire. If you have been on many diets and if you want to lose weight - you are NOT a bad person. You have learnt that in order to live in a society rife with weight stigma, you needed some coping strategies and diet culture provided that for you. Diet culture gave you the coping strategies to try and navigate a society by riddled with anti-fat beliefs that have us ScuLPtiNG your body, bUrNiNG fAt and LoSiNg wEighT fAST but looking at the research… diets and shame are not the answer.
As my environment and I continue to change, so too does my relationship with food and exercise.
I remember the flood of relief that I felt when I admitted to myself that building a new life, in a country halfway across the globe where I didn’t speak the language was reason enough to release myself from my heavily regimented food and exercise behaviours. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t this one miraculous realisation, it was many but I do vividly remember the first time I allowed myself to let go and release that pressure. It has and continues to be a journey, one that I don’t think has an end but rather a constant cycling evolution. As my environment and I continue to change and adapt, so too does my relationship with food and exercise.
I held anti-fat beliefs and I thought that people were fat because they chose to be.
I learnt from a young age that thin was good and fat was bad. Thin was healthy and fat was unhealthy. I strived for thinness and held anti-fat beliefs. I thought that people were fat because they chose to be. It is hard to write this but it is the truth and I believe in the power of vulnerability. Too often we are too scared to be judged and so we don’t turn to face our biases, which is why it is important that we see what this looks like. I am so grateful that I found educators in the space who introduced me to the concept of Health at Every Size and the Anti-Diet message. I am so grateful to be able to do the work I do and share this message because anti-fatness hurts us all. We all need to give a shit about the impact that weight stigma has on fat people. We need to be willing to look inwards and challenge our own beliefs around diet culture and weight stigma. We need to be having conversations with those in our immediate circles having tough conversations about problematic comments around food/people’s bodies. Are you seeing some similarities between this and ant-racism work? That’s because anti-fatness is a social justice issue too.
We need to be willing to look inwards and challenge our own beliefs around diet culture and weight stigma.
A question that usually crops up when people talk about anti-fatness is “WhaT AboUT hEalTh?” Let’s talk about health - how do you define it? What is health? The dominant message states that food and exercise will keep you healthy and further to that, this idea that it is as simple as calories in and calories out. It’s not. Think about how complex all of our human systems are do we truly think we can dwindle our wellbeing down to 2 determinants? Not only that, is it really about HeAlTh? Of course it’s not! Why would you be so concerned about a stranger’s health? This article by Linda Bacon and Amee Severson explains:
“Focusing on weight—or health behaviors—puts the burden on the individual, deflecting attention from the more pernicious problem: systemic injustice. Conditions in the places where people live, work, and play affect health outcomes to a much larger degree than health behaviors, which, all told (including eating, activity and other behaviors), account for less than 25 percent of differences in health outcomes. While health behavior change is valuable, to truly improve public health, we can work harder to create an inclusive society where everyone feels valued and has the opportunity to create a good life for themselves. Combating fat-phobia needs to be part of that agenda.”
Let’s look at some determinants of health:
Access to healthcare
Economic stability
Social and community context
Education
Neighbourhood and environment
Gender
Nutrition
Lifestyle
Genetics
All of these factors have a myriad of ways in which they contribute to or detract from our overall health.
It’s not as simple as calories in, calories out.
Over the past year or so, I have gone through some big shifts. I have been navigating what it means to be a brown woman whilst still having many privileges. I am learning how I can best be an ally and an advocate for those in marginalised bodies because people can be misinformed and unwilling to look at their biases. I am still learning and I certainly don’t have all the answers but I am ready to share, connect and make a difference.
Did something in this blog challenge you? What was it? I would love to hear from you (even if it is to challenge my views)!
