Global pandemic be darned, the holiday season has arrived! With the festive spirit and cheer of the holidays often come stress and anxiety, especially for those in eating disorder recovery.
We hope that this season brings you connection with friends and family (even if you won’t physically be in the same place!) or time for reflection on growth or goal setting for the coming months or years. May these few recovery ideas help you successfully navigate this year’s holidays in recovery.
Episode description:
Brittany Braswell is a Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist (RDN) who runs a virtual private practice for those struggling with food and body image concerns. In both individual and group settings, she helps clients reduce their anxiety and disordered behaviors so that they can achieve lasting freedom from the bondage of their eating disorders.
Brittany joins us in this episode of Peace Meal to explore recovery from a faith-based perspective. For many, she explains, faith is a belief system more powerful than an eating disorder, one in which people can trust when distancing themselves from their illness.
To place trust in faith during recovery, Brittany emphasizes the importance of intentionality.
“I think being able to reconnect to those values or to your faith is really about turning down the eating disorder volume and getting really intentional about identifying and listening for those healthy voices,” she says.
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This year’s holidays may not be like the ones we used to know. Amid pandemic restrictions on travel and in-person gatherings, more caution and creativity will be the key to safe plans.
Not only can we make our holiday plans more COVID-friendly, we can also make them friendlier to those with eating disorders. For people experiencing these illnesses, anxiety related to holiday eating, socializing, and changes in routine often make this season the most challenging time of the year.
The best gift we can give our children and other loved ones affected by eating disorders is genuine, informed support. Consider these suggestions to help your teenager with an eating disorder navigate the holidays ahead.
Episode description:
Kezia Reeder is a former Emily Program client and staff member and a continual advocate for eating disorder recovery. In this episode of Peace Meal, she joins host Dr. Jillian Lampert to describe her holidays with an eating disorder.
“I feel like I was constantly stressed from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Eve,” Kezia says. “It’s supposed to be a time of celebration and… in the United States, a lot of our celebration centers around gathering for a meal.”
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An estimated 30 million people in the United States have an eating disorder. The majority of them do not receive professional care. Many experience shame and stigma because of their illness, and many struggle all alone.
By educating ourselves and others, we can work to reduce stigma and to better understand these complex illnesses that affect so many. Here are five myths and facts about eating disorders.
Fact: This is the stereotypical image of eating disorders—a thin, young, white woman. It is this woman we’ve seen in media depictions of these disorders and heard about most in common chatter. Even within the field, research has historically focused on clients who fit this profile, in part because white women were (and still are) the most likely to receive care.
But this narrow demographic does not accurately reflect the diversity of those who experience these illnesses. Far from it. Eating disorders affect people of all ages, races, genders, sexual orientations, body sizes, classes, and abilities. They’re not just a “teenager’s problem” or a “white girl’s problem.” They’re not something that affects only wealthy people, or only cisgender people, or only people of any other social group. Eating disorders don’t discriminate in these ways; they span across all social categories.
**Content warning: This post includes discussion of purging behaviors. Please use your discretion when reading and speak with your support system as needed. The following information is not intended as medical advice or as a substitute for professional treatment.
Dr. Jake Linardon (Ph.D.) is the founder of Break Binge Eating and works as a Research Fellow at Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. Jake’s work involves trying to better understand and treat eating disorders, particularly through the use of innovative technologies. Jake has published over 40 peer-reviewed journal articles, across the world’s leading psychiatry and clinical psychology scientific journals, and serves on the editorial board for the International Journal of Eating Disorders and Body Image. Jake is passionate about increasing access to evidence-based care among people with eating and body image issues. Learn more about Jake on his website, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
When looking for resources to help you deal with binge eating, chances are you’ll come across content that discusses strategies to prevent or stop the behavior.
While I’ve personally covered what to do after a binge eating episode, little has been written about what not to do after a binge.
This is a very important oversight because many people are left not knowing how to behave after they’ve had a binge. Such knowledge is critical if you are to fully break out of the binge cycle long-term.
Let’s change this.
In this article, I’ll discuss five important things that you shouldn’t do after an episode of binge eating.
