When Woman Meets Food: A Complicated Relationship

photo by yoshiko314

Whether she’s our sister, our co-worker, or the girl who looks as though she’s going to collapse from dehydration at the gym, many of us are aware of someone in our lives with an eating disorder. We see the tell-tale signs in the sunken cheekbones, the uneaten slice of cake, and the wringing hands when it comes time to put in a lunch order. We often sigh to ourselves and wonder how they manage to have that infamous “willpower,” resting assured that we could never do something like that to our bodies.

But what about our own little food rituals - the way we hate eating desserts in front of other people or refuse to use real sugar? The mistake that many of us make is seeing ourselves as separate and distinct from those with eating disorders, when “normal eating” is actually more on a continuum. Unhealthy eating patterns are more the norm than the exception, particularly as we face increasingly unrealistic expectations for our bodies, and become busier and less connected as a society.

In fact, experts estimate that anywhere from 15 to 50 percent of women engage in harmful eating patterns or “disordered eating.” Disordered eating means eating habits that are abnormal and can include things women do to manage weight, as well as their attitudes about food and weight.

Take Susanna as an example, who came to me for treatment for her anxiety following being laid off from her job. A lifelong swimmer with an average build, Susanna casually described her eating habits to me in one session as “all over the map.”

“Some days I eat a huge lunch, so I just don’t feel right making an elaborate dinner, especially if I have some event coming up and a tight dress to fit into. I’ll just heat up a bag of popcorn and call it a night,” she said. “And then other nights I go crazy, eating what feels like everything in the house. Sometimes I even eat until I feel physically sick. By the next morning, I just don’t feel like eating for a while.”

Susanna hadn’t thought twice about the way that she ate. To her it felt like a fairly typical way of managing her weight and dealing with her food cravings. However, what Susanna described is a picture of disordered eating, though it’s certainly not the only picture.

For others, disordered eating can involve cutting out certain food groups as a means of controlling weight, only buying low-calorie or low-fat versions of favorite foods, putting off eating until other tasks are completed, or scheduling events around food and using it as an excuse to eat more.

While giving up red meat or sticking to your running schedule might not seem like major issues, they can quickly and unexpectedly become a bigger problem than you want in your life. A good way to gauge whether your habits are disordered is to try to change them up and reflect on the difference in how you feel.

If eating that cupcake at the office creates anxiety or pushes you to do more crunches, it may be time to examine your relationship with food. Living a life free of disordered eating means asking yourself honestly why you are making the choices you are making. Is it because you feel like you need food to soothe you? You’re afraid of becoming overweight? You can’t handle the stress you’re under? Examining our own eating patterns gives us the opportunity to address what might really be going on inside of us.

Ashley Solomon, Psy.D , is a therapist who specializes in the treatment of eating disorders, body image, trauma, and serious mental illness. www.nourishing-the-soul.com.