Dec. 13, 2024
Rethinking Eating Disorders: How Women Over 40 Are Impacted
Join us for an enlightening discussion with Jessica Sitnick, a renowned expert in eating disorder treatment, as we unravel the myths surrounding eating disorders, particularly in women over 40. Despite being perceived as a condition for younger demographics, eating disorders significantly impact women in midlife and beyond. In this episode, Jessica draws on her unique journey from anthropology to nutrition to shed light on the cultural, psychological, and systemic factors that shape our relationship with food.
Explore how chronic stress and societal pressures influence eating behaviors and how midlife transitions can affect body image and self-esteem. Jessica shares practical strategies for identifying disordered eating in ourselves or others, emphasizing empathy, respect, and holistic healing. We also dive into her "Healing Your Inner Eater" workbook, offering tools to reconnect with our bodies and embrace intuitive eating.
Tune in for a powerful conversation about self-awareness, the impact of ancestral experiences on eating habits, and building a healthier, more inclusive mindset around food.
Bio
Jessica Setnick is the best kind of dietitian - knows her stuff but doesn't take herself too seriously. She's devoted her life to helping people understand their eating behaviors without shame or condescension and to helping healthcare providers do a better job.
Social Media and Website
JessicaSetnick.com
https://www.facebook.com/jessica.setnick
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Chapters
00:00 - Eating Disorders
10:53 - Approaching Eating Disorder Concerns Respectfully
21:05 - Understanding the Impact of Eating Disorders
Transcript
WEBVTT
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What kinds of things do you look for when it comes to someone that might have an eating disorder?
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Right.
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So you can't ever know, it's not something you can see, so you can't judge by someone's weight, even weight loss.
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We sometimes, you know, it's easy to think like, oh well, someone's lost too much weight, they must have anorexia.
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But there's lots of other things that can cause weight loss, like depression, right, cancer, hiv.
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We just can't make assumptions, so all we have to go on is our you could call it your spidey sense, your sixth sense, whatever it is.
00:00:31.611 --> 00:00:41.390
If you sense something is going on, something has changed, even if you can't put your finger on it, it's always okay, I think, to bring that up to a friend A stranger, no, but a friend.
00:00:41.390 --> 00:00:51.734
You can say I just feel like something's different and I don't know what it is, and I just wanted to open the door to say if something's going on with you, I hope you feel I'm a safe person that you can talk to.
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Hi, I'm Linus Woods Mullins and I love to help women to vibe, to be more vibrant, intuitive, beautiful and empowered in their life.
00:01:10.254 --> 00:01:11.906
So come on, let's vibe.
00:01:11.906 --> 00:01:25.775
Hi everybody, welcome to the Vibe Living Podcast.
00:01:25.775 --> 00:01:31.233
It's great to be here today and I'm going to be talking about something that all of us, I think, have heard about.
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But you know, as we age, we have a tendency to think that these kinds of things don't happen to older women, and I'm talking about eating disorders.
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Believe it or not, eating disorders aren't just for the 16 year olds.
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There are women who have eating disorders also, and today we have a guest by the name of Jessica Sitnick, and she is well known by eating disorder professionals worldwide because she's really brought a new vision to the idea of eating disorders and really has opened the eyes to people with her training workshops, eating disorder boot camp and hundreds of conferences that she's gone to and community presentations talking about eating disorders and spreading her message that thousands of healthcare professionals and all around the world literally have listened to and really have kind of some aha moments about the whole idea of eating disorders.
00:02:21.126 --> 00:02:24.229
Jessica, thanks so much for being on the Vibe Living Podcast.
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It's wonderful to have you here today.
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I feel the same way and I love your energy already.
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I know we're going to get along great.
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That's fantastic.
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Really seriously.
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A lot of people do think that eating disorders are for, you know, the adolescent or the gymnast or the athlete, or whatever, but the reality is is that anyone, any age, could have it, but in particular, women over 40, this is something that is one of the things they keep near and dear their hearts, that they don't even talk about, nor do they think they even fall into that category.
00:02:56.492 --> 00:03:00.852
So my first question is what is your definition of an eating disorder?
00:03:01.319 --> 00:03:03.985
Sure, so it's a very simple definition.
00:03:03.985 --> 00:03:08.782
Do problems happen when you eat or when you don't eat?
00:03:08.782 --> 00:03:10.286
That's it.
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Do problems happen Problems, problems like problems with relationships?
00:03:15.382 --> 00:03:16.985
Do you feel guilty and regretful?
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Do you feel like you have to undo what you ate?
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Do you only eat when you're with other people, but you don't eat when you're alone?
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Do you use compensatory behaviors?
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Do you fear food?
00:03:27.573 --> 00:03:43.342
And so I ignore the diagnostic criteria because they're really not made to describe the human experience and, shamefully for my field, our whole field was kind of based on what we now call the swag stereotype, which is skinny, white adolescent girl.
00:03:43.342 --> 00:03:47.162
That is not who has eating disorders, but that's who.
00:03:47.162 --> 00:03:56.038
The field was sort of based on the idea that you know, it's an affluent disease and it's only young girls.
00:03:56.038 --> 00:04:00.807
Everything you were saying before, which we know, isn't true Anyone who eats can have problems eating.
00:04:00.807 --> 00:04:02.790
So that's where my definition comes from.
00:04:02.790 --> 00:04:04.379
Is are there problems?
00:04:04.379 --> 00:04:10.322
If someone's experiencing a problem, then that's when we want them to reach out for help rather than feeling ashamed of it.
00:04:11.163 --> 00:04:12.968
Now, how did you get involved in this?
00:04:13.008 --> 00:04:13.469
topic.
00:04:13.469 --> 00:04:23.920
So my degree in college was anthropology and I really had no idea how I would turn that into a career, but I love the idea of human development, right?
00:04:23.920 --> 00:04:29.190
And if you're not familiar with anthropology, it's the study of humans over time, right?
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How we developed culture, how we developed words and language, how we developed physically so interesting.
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And so when I took nutrition as an elective, I decided I would pursue a career in nutrition.
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Well, at that time so about 20, oh, maybe almost 30 years ago now, 1990s the only area where it was really kosher to talk about those things in nutrition was eating disorders.
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I think that it's important to talk about in every area and that's started to take off in all areas of nutrition the cultural aspects, the belief aspects, the way you're raised, the way different bodies may process foods differently All of that is now something that's talked about.
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But 30 years ago it was really only in the eating disorder field that you could talk to people about their eating behavior and how they felt after eating and the psychology of eating and why people made the choices they made.
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I think that is so interesting.
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It's like a microcosm.
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Every person has their own reasons, right.
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That's why it's hard in the eating disorder field, because every person you meet is different.
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There's no set protocol where you can say you have this problem, do this solution.
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But it's also the most rewarding because you really get to know people.
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So that's how I got into the eating disorder field and why I love it to know people.
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So that's how I got into the eating disorder field and why I love it.
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That's interesting, from anthropology to nutrition to actually talking about eating disorder.
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But there's something there that's kind of directly correlated because eating disorders are so much tied to what's going on with us socially, what's going on with our environment, how we grew up, the kinds of things we normally ate, how food was used, because one thing I've noticed in Western culture is that we have food for everything for celebrations, for deaths, for births, for birthdays, graduations.
00:06:13.569 --> 00:06:21.389
There's food, food, food all the time, and I'm wondering how much of that feeds into the beginning of some people's eating disorders.
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Well.
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So it's interesting because I don't think it's the abundance of food exactly that causes an eating disorder.
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It's more the way we talk about it, like you said, the more the way we treat it.
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So something like this food is only for a special occasion.
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That scarcity is what actually drives the eating disorder.
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Even though we could have pumpkin pie in July, we don't.
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We usually most people usually have it around this time in the fall, right Thanksgiving maybe, and so it creates that scarcity.
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So when we're around it we really want more, if you even like pumpkin pie.
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But we do that with lots of different things, and I think it's actually diet culture that promotes eating disorders, because diet culture is always trying to restrict us from something, whether it's carbs, whether it's gluten.
00:07:04.117 --> 00:07:10.213
That promotes eating disorders, because diet culture is always trying to restrict us from something, whether it's carbs, whether it's gluten, whether it's all these things that we're told.
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I mean, if you pick any food in the entire world and you can find someone somewhere that's going to tell you why you shouldn't eat it, right, and so it affects us more the closer to home it is.
00:07:21.233 --> 00:07:25.851
So if we've grown up with someone who says, oh, I don't eat any blank.
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We internalize that more especially from a younger age, and so it's that restriction that then leads to being sneaky about it or feeling guilty when you do eat it, or trying not to eat it and then overdoing it when you do dabble.
00:07:40.648 --> 00:07:45.846
So it ends up being the restricting that actually causes the eating disorders.
00:07:46.579 --> 00:08:07.247
Interesting, which kind of makes sense when you think about the fact that midlife women might be suffering from an eating disorder because their whole lives they've been hearing about diets and what to eat and what not to eat, and there is as many different ways of thinking about eating, what you should and should not eat, I feel as there are people I mean it's overwhelming.
00:08:07.648 --> 00:08:09.370
I knew we were sisters.
00:08:09.370 --> 00:08:11.295
Yes, it's overwhelming.
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So, in your opinion, what is the best diet?
00:08:13.547 --> 00:08:14.810
I mean what makes sense?
00:08:15.473 --> 00:08:28.786
So there's the easy guidelines, right, which is sort of, you know, thinking about the food that comes out of the ground, as opposed to the more processed foods, right, so natural foods.
00:08:28.786 --> 00:08:43.029
But there's a big PS to that, which is that doesn't mean you can't ever eat any food, and so, looking at food, this is gonna sound so weird, I think, for someone who's never considered it but food is really just molecules, right?
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So my body doesn't know the difference once it's chewed up and mashed and swirled up in my system, my body doesn't really know the difference.
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If I ate, let's say, a turkey and cheese sandwich versus a piece of pizza, right, there's some cheese, there's some carbs like a source of protein, a source of carbohydrates, a source of fats, and that all my body breaks it apart into the molecules and knows what to do with it somehow.
00:09:06.682 --> 00:09:07.967
It's a miracle if you ask me.
00:09:08.008 --> 00:09:14.772
I don't know how this hair was made, I don't have to consciously know, but my body took care of it from the molecules and the ingredients and food.
00:09:14.772 --> 00:09:23.043
But yet for some reason, people have an instant feeling of a turkey sandwich must be healthier than pizza, or, oh, a turkey sandwich and pizza.
00:09:23.043 --> 00:09:26.046
You shouldn't eat either one of those, right, it's those ideas.
00:09:26.046 --> 00:09:31.491
And if we started thinking about it just as molecules, then it has less power over us.
00:09:31.491 --> 00:09:40.510
And so, to think about your, you want all the different kinds of molecules in your body, right, in order to make hair, in order to make skin, in order to make a healthy heart.
00:09:40.510 --> 00:09:46.091
We want to have all the nutrients that there are, instead of trying to select which ones.
00:09:46.440 --> 00:09:50.330
And that's the beauty of food is when you look at food, it's like, it's amazing.
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It provides all the nutrients we need and we don't have to know.
00:09:52.844 --> 00:10:05.731
But yet we start putting our conscious control on it and thinking I have to take all these supplements, I have to do all this manipulating of my food rather than recognizing if you have a big rainbow, let's say, of food.
00:10:05.731 --> 00:10:10.251
The more variety of food you eat, the more nutrients you're going to get automatically.
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That's the main goal is to not be limiting and not be focusing on what you shouldn't have, but instead try to eat a variety of foods.
00:10:18.154 --> 00:10:18.779
It's so simple.
00:10:18.799 --> 00:10:20.062
No, I agree with you.
00:10:20.062 --> 00:10:33.712
I always tell my clients that if you want to really you know improve your eating, add things that you know are healthy and over time, the things that aren't as healthy kind of just begin to drop off after a while.
00:10:34.260 --> 00:10:40.547
Or they sort of get diluted out, right Right, that's right, you don't crave them anymore and you're eating more nutrient-dense food.
00:10:40.720 --> 00:10:45.488
So you know, your hunger and snacking between all those kinds of things don't seem to matter as much.
00:10:45.488 --> 00:10:50.163
But let's say we have someone who something's going on, a friend of ours.
00:10:50.163 --> 00:10:52.870
We're looking at some things and thinking something's going on here.
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How do you talk to someone that you suspect may have an eating disorder?
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What do you say?
00:10:58.091 --> 00:11:02.206
Okay, so the number one thing is not at a meal time.
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Okay, do not comment on what they are eating.
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That is prime time for shame, and shame never triggers anything useful.
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So to say, is that all you're going to eat?
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Not helpful, or do you really think you need that second portion?
00:11:17.866 --> 00:11:18.909
Not helpful.
00:11:18.909 --> 00:11:28.975
So those are the things not to say at a totally separate time, not around food, because, remember, if someone is struggling with their eating, food related time is very vulnerable for them.
00:11:29.421 --> 00:11:34.173
So a totally different time to say you know, I've been, I've been thinking about something.
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It's just kind of been on my mind and I wanted to bring it up to you.
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Is this good timing?
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And then say you know, I just noticed a change in you Because, remember, it's not about their body size, it's not about their eating.
00:11:50.086 --> 00:11:52.236
Exactly, it's a change.
00:11:52.236 --> 00:11:56.981
If someone's always been a picky eater and they're still a picky eater, that just may be how they are.
00:11:56.981 --> 00:12:05.133
But if you've noticed a change in someone, I've noticed that you seem to really seem anxious when we go out to dinner and that's different.
00:12:05.133 --> 00:12:10.172
Or I've noticed maybe I'm imagining it, but I feel like I've noticed a change in your eating.
00:12:10.172 --> 00:12:18.360
Or maybe I'm imagining it, but I've noticed that every time after we eat together, you seem to leave the table for quite a while before you come back.
00:12:18.360 --> 00:12:19.663
And I'm just.
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I just wanted to hear your thoughts on that.
00:12:22.878 --> 00:12:29.442
I just felt like I wouldn't be a good friend if I didn't mention it and then just leave the door open for what they say next.
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You know, it's interesting because, as you're talking, people might want to say, well, I think there might be a problem, but how do I know?
00:12:37.238 --> 00:12:41.712
What kinds of things do you look for when it comes to someone that might have an eating disorder?
00:12:41.952 --> 00:12:42.173
Right.
00:12:42.173 --> 00:12:49.081
So you can't ever know, it's not something you can see, so you can't judge by someone's weight, even weight loss.
00:12:49.081 --> 00:12:55.311
We sometimes, you know, it's easy to think like, oh well, someone's lost too much weight, they must have anorexia.
00:12:55.311 --> 00:13:00.455
But there's lots of other things that can cause weight loss, like depression, right, Cancer, HIV.
00:13:00.455 --> 00:13:00.956
There's a lot.
00:13:00.956 --> 00:13:08.525
We just can't make assumptions, so all we have to go on is our you could call it your spidey sense, your sixth sense, whatever it is.
00:13:08.947 --> 00:13:18.274
If you sense something is going on, something has changed, even if you can't put your finger on it, it's always okay, I think, to bring that up to a friend A stranger, no, but a friend.
00:13:18.294 --> 00:13:28.652
You can say I just feel like something's different and I don't know what it is, and I just wanted to open the door to say if something's going on with you, I hope you feel I'm a safe person that you can talk to.
00:13:28.652 --> 00:13:39.429
Because the outcome of these conversations is not for your friend to confess something to you, is not for your friend to say I will change, I promise to change, or something like that.
00:13:39.429 --> 00:13:46.601
The outcome of the conversation is really for you to assist your friend in the way that they ask for help, so to say.
00:13:46.601 --> 00:13:51.157
I would be happy to look up counselors and see if I could find someone for you.
00:13:51.157 --> 00:13:53.784
Would that be a way I could help you right?
00:13:53.784 --> 00:13:56.581
Or would you want me to go to your doctor with you?
00:13:56.581 --> 00:13:58.870
Would you be willing to talk with your doctor about this?
00:13:58.870 --> 00:14:03.859
I'd be happy to wait in the waiting room or go in with you to talk to your doctor and support you right.
00:14:03.859 --> 00:14:09.614
So the goal is not for you to solve your friend's problem, but to get them to speak with a professional.
00:14:09.975 --> 00:14:14.474
Right, kind of to plant that seed and open up the conversation to get them to start thinking.
00:14:14.474 --> 00:14:32.077
You know, it's interesting because, as I mentioned earlier when we first got started talking about the whole idea of midlife women not having this problem, but when you think about it, a lot of midlife women not having this problem, but when you think about it, a lot of midlife women do have an interesting relationship with food and a lot of midlife women have a tendency to kind of like struggle with their body image.
00:14:32.077 --> 00:14:34.510
So let's take a look at the body image thing.
00:14:34.510 --> 00:14:51.394
How can we have a better body image as midlife women just period, and not so much just because we have an eating disorder, but just in general, because sometimes maybe that how we conceptualize our bodies might be one of the reasons why we end up with a disorder.
00:14:51.394 --> 00:14:52.015
So where?
00:14:52.035 --> 00:14:52.998
do we start with that?
00:14:52.998 --> 00:14:59.456
So, as a midlife woman myself, at 52,- I oh, okay, you can be my child.
00:14:59.537 --> 00:15:00.438
I'm 67.
00:15:00.438 --> 00:15:03.804
We're going through menopausal changes.
00:15:03.804 --> 00:15:05.255
We're going through body changes.
00:15:05.255 --> 00:15:21.679
What I think is so important and I've had to really work on this myself, so this is not empty platitudes, this is really my own stuff is that where did we get the idea that once we became adults, our bodies weren't going to keep changing right?
00:15:21.679 --> 00:15:26.879
It's sort of like once you grow to your adult height, you sort of make up in your head that I'm done now.
00:15:26.879 --> 00:15:28.250
I'm done growing, I'm finished.
00:15:28.551 --> 00:15:34.311
And so when we see wrinkles or we see a little change in our body shape, we think this is wrong.
00:15:34.311 --> 00:15:40.320
If I were doing it right, I would maintain the same size, the same shape, the same everything till the end of my day.
00:15:40.320 --> 00:15:42.342
Why, where do we get that idea?
00:15:42.342 --> 00:15:45.614
It menopaused like a second puberty my gosh, right.
00:15:45.614 --> 00:15:49.802
So if we can be more embracing of this is the next stage.
00:15:49.802 --> 00:15:50.831
It's so ironic.
00:15:50.831 --> 00:15:55.953
We expect kids to go through puberty and blossom and grow and all this stuff, and they're just supposed to accept it.
00:15:55.953 --> 00:16:00.416
But then we, when it happens to us, we're all mad about it, we're trying to control it.
00:16:00.416 --> 00:16:04.052
So it is an opportunity for a lot of problems to develop.
00:16:04.152 --> 00:16:18.922
And so for me, what I've done for myself and maybe this will help some listeners is I think about the people I've lost, who didn't have the privilege of aging, who didn't get wrinkles, who will never have gray hair, and I remember that it is a privilege to age.
00:16:18.922 --> 00:16:30.465
And then I think about people I know who are, let's say, maya Angelou comes to mind as someone who aged so beautifully, so significantly, so meaningfully.
00:16:30.465 --> 00:16:34.576
I'm looking at you with your gray hair and thinking you're gorgeous, right?
00:16:34.576 --> 00:16:51.071
So looking at role models of aging that are meaningful to us, as opposed to looking always at the younger models and the younger version and thinking we're supposed to go back to that and we don't have a lot of representation of women at the age.
00:16:51.071 --> 00:17:05.336
Helen Mirren comes to mind, right, judy Dench, we need to fill our Instagram feeds with people who are aging beautifully, and I don't just mean physically beautifully, but I mean wisdom, engaging beautifully, like and I don't just mean physically beautifully but I mean wisdom and right, right, all of that.
00:17:05.356 --> 00:17:15.311
You know, when I first got started in this business, which was almost 17 years ago, and when I would do blogs and things like that, I would look for images of women over 40 to put on the blog.
00:17:15.311 --> 00:17:16.634
It was so hard.
00:17:16.634 --> 00:17:22.435
And over the years I've seen the change and it's not as hard anymore, especially now with AI.
00:17:22.435 --> 00:17:23.810
You can do all kinds of things.
00:17:23.810 --> 00:17:32.075
But it's like there's this awareness that's slowly beginning to evolve and people tell me all the time you don't look 67.
00:17:32.496 --> 00:17:36.384
And my response is I say, hmm, what does 67 look like?
00:17:36.384 --> 00:17:45.480
I mean, you know the what a 67 looks like is in the eye of the beholder, based upon our life experiences and what we've seen before, based upon the role models and things.
00:17:45.480 --> 00:17:54.942
And for years and years and years, 67 was probably somebody in a rocking chair, orthopedic shoes, lots of wrinkles, hair and a little net.
00:17:54.942 --> 00:17:55.522
You know.
00:17:55.522 --> 00:17:59.367
Probably a baby in the arms of the cat knitting on the side.
00:17:59.367 --> 00:18:01.309
You know, cup of tea rocking.
00:18:01.309 --> 00:18:03.538
Ok, that sure ain't me.
00:18:03.538 --> 00:18:16.040
So in some ways, you know, I think women are just themselves beginning to destroy that myth because of their desire to live longer and healthier lives.
00:18:16.101 --> 00:19:03.759
We don't have to be that way I agree with that and also forgive me for saying because I'm not trying to blame any one half of the population but I think it also reflects women getting into positions of power, where women are in control of the issues we have in terms of how we evaluate things, that is, through the scope of a male, as a white male, basically, who's setting all the tones and everything, and we still are adhering to a lot of those things they said like in the 50s, like counting calories and all these different things that aren't really a part of our experience and definitely not realistic for a midlife woman.
00:19:04.160 --> 00:19:15.092
Yeah, you want to be aware of what you're putting in your mouth, but there's certain nutrients and things that we need to have that might be a higher caloric value than something else, and that doesn't mean that you should not eat it.
00:19:15.092 --> 00:19:16.895
So I believe that you're right.
00:19:16.895 --> 00:19:21.054
People are beginning to change, you know, beginning to change their concept.
00:19:21.054 --> 00:19:24.050
But what are some of the causes of eating orders?
00:19:24.050 --> 00:19:31.381
Because I think that midlife women, when they're listening to this podcast, they might be thinking well, how can I possibly have an eating disorder or how do you get one?
00:19:31.381 --> 00:19:32.752
So what could be some of the causes?
00:19:33.074 --> 00:19:35.339
Okay, so I put them in four categories.
00:19:35.339 --> 00:19:39.476
Like you said, for every person there's probably a different path, right?
00:19:39.476 --> 00:19:44.373
So we can't make any generalization about each individual, but I put them in four categories.
00:19:44.373 --> 00:19:56.638
One is biological right, so you start having hypothyroidism or something and that causes weight gain and eating changes, and you're confused and you're trying to control that with diet, not realizing that you have a medical problem underneath.
00:19:57.079 --> 00:20:10.070
I include in that category things like losing your taste and smell from COVID, depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, things that are medical, diabetes, things that reasons you have to change your eating.
00:20:10.070 --> 00:20:23.461
Finding out you have celiac disease reasons that you have to change your eating, or that you choose to change your eating, but you don't realize something medical is underlying it, and so that is one path, and what we really need to do is figure out the underlying thing.
00:20:23.461 --> 00:20:41.375
But diet culture has sort of convinced us that if our bodies change, it must be our fault, and so we forget to look for a medical reason underneath it, not even mentioning all the weight stigma in the medical profession that sometimes misses these things and tells us to just push away from the plate, and that's not the problem at all.
00:20:41.998 --> 00:20:47.196
So, yeah, that that makes that makes a lot of sense, especially with men like women in particular.
00:20:47.196 --> 00:20:49.636
As you mentioned, our bodies are changing anyway hormonally.
00:20:49.636 --> 00:20:54.821
It's all over the place, and that's still something that women don't really know a lot about.
00:20:54.821 --> 00:20:59.997
They're just beginning to start talking more about it in terms of how much hormones impact.
00:21:01.935 --> 00:21:03.059
That is just one path.
00:21:03.059 --> 00:21:10.105
There's also the stress and trauma related path and the women are completely like that is our lives.
00:21:10.105 --> 00:21:23.663
I think there are some things that a man will just never understand that we go through as women, how deeply we feel, how much we care about our communities, about the children in our lives, how much we take care of behind the scenes.
00:21:23.663 --> 00:21:35.734
I know my husband walks by sometimes and I'm on some kind of customer service phone call and later he'll say, hon, I just think there's so much you do for our family that I don't even know about and I just want to say thank you and I appreciate that.
00:21:35.734 --> 00:21:48.180
But there is a lot of stuff that guys just don't really realize we are bearing, we are carrying with us, and so there's chronic stress that there's also traumatic events the individual events can cause.
00:21:48.180 --> 00:21:50.633
What happens is they change our brain chemistry.
00:21:50.633 --> 00:21:55.349
And the things that also change our brain chemistry involve eating and not eating.
00:21:55.349 --> 00:21:56.894
Both change brain chemistry.
00:21:56.894 --> 00:21:59.403
Vomiting changes your brain chemistry.
00:21:59.403 --> 00:22:01.680
Abusing laxatives changes your brain chemistry.
00:22:01.680 --> 00:22:02.767
Diet pills change your brain chemistry.
00:22:02.767 --> 00:22:03.513
Abusing laxatives changes your brain chemistry.
00:22:03.513 --> 00:22:04.259
Diet pills change your brain chemistry.
00:22:04.259 --> 00:22:11.277
So sometimes we don't realize that stress has drained our good chemicals and food can put those chemicals back in.
00:22:11.277 --> 00:22:17.336
I mean, there's a direct pathway from eating carbs to serotonin in your brain and so right.
00:22:17.698 --> 00:22:29.652
And so there's a lot of that stress, and some of the stresses is underlying things that are not related to food itself, like, for example, systemic racism or something like that, which is a huge stress.
00:22:29.772 --> 00:22:38.799
You know all the disparities and inequalities, but then if we've actually had a traumatic experience related to food, it even exacerbates that.
00:22:38.799 --> 00:22:40.730
So, for example, I'm thinking of friends.
00:22:40.730 --> 00:22:42.837
Everybody's seen friends, right?
00:22:42.837 --> 00:22:46.986
Chandler's parents announced they were getting divorced at the Thanksgiving table.
00:22:46.986 --> 00:22:49.153
He won't eat Thanksgiving food, right?
00:22:49.153 --> 00:22:58.422
Or I always think of Hurricane Katrina, because I live in Texas, and I'm thinking about someone sitting on their roof for three days not knowing if they're going to get rescued and how.
00:22:58.422 --> 00:23:04.548
I can't even imagine the painfulness of that, but, ps, they also didn't have anything to eat.
00:23:04.548 --> 00:23:37.734
So now you've got a traumatic event that is linked together with food and or being incarcerated, a situation where there's limited food available and at limited times, and so someone who's trying to process the intense events that have happened to them that also were related to food may have an eating disorder or food related behavior that is not necessarily productive to their life, but is harming them even after the traumatic event has passed, that's amazing Now with eating disorders.
00:23:37.775 --> 00:23:40.261
we always talk about it in terms of females.
00:23:40.261 --> 00:23:41.712
Do men also have?
00:23:42.034 --> 00:23:42.895
eating disorders.
00:23:42.895 --> 00:23:47.596
Oh yes, absolutely yes, every group that you can imagine.
00:23:47.596 --> 00:23:51.978
Anyone who eats can have an eating disorder, and so I kind of laugh to myself.
00:23:51.978 --> 00:24:03.978
I don't laugh loudly at them usually, but when a reporter calls and says something like, tell me about the new trend of eating disorders in teenage boys, and I just think it's not new, it's news, but it's not new, right?
00:24:03.978 --> 00:24:15.809
Or tell me about the new trend of eating disorders in midlife women right, it's not new, it's part of our fabric right.
00:24:15.734 --> 00:24:18.262
Our awareness may be raised, but it's always been there and that's why I love the idea of some of the things you're doing.
00:24:18.262 --> 00:24:19.215
I know you have this companion workbook.
00:24:19.215 --> 00:24:22.032
It's called Healing your Inner Eater.
00:24:22.032 --> 00:24:22.674
What is that?
00:24:22.674 --> 00:24:22.914
What's?
00:24:22.954 --> 00:24:23.557
involved in that.
00:24:23.557 --> 00:24:30.397
Oh my gosh, I just got back from doing a Healing your Inner Eater workshop and it's so powerful, and so this is the companion workbook.
00:24:30.397 --> 00:24:33.643
But you can do the workbook without participating in the workshop.
00:24:33.643 --> 00:24:50.460
Excuse me, it is for anyone who wants to look at how they became the eater that they are, because so much of what we do with eating is unconscious and the only way to change it is to bring it into consciousness and then decide if it's something we want to continue or not.
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