Eating disorders as “solutions”

Nobody has an eating disorder for the fun of it. If you’ve developed an eating disorder, it’s because something hasn’t been working in your life. You’ve turned to your eating disorder because it seems to help; never mind the terrible price you’re paying for it.

Sadly, your eating disorder is a vote of no-confidence in your personal ability to solve problems, manage feelings, or create a life to be proud of. Depending on your disorder, you’ve discovered that weight loss brings admiration, dieting gives you a sense of control, bingeing provides temporary comfort, or purging offers a sense of release and relief. Each makes the eating disorder seem like a powerful and readily available ally.

The tricky thing about eating disorder symptoms is that the more they appear to solve for you, the more you ask them to solve — and the more you believe in them as problem-solvers. When a symptom seems to fix so much, it can achieve a very “dug-in” place in your life.

Eating well and good

Organic farming

Food that is certified organic comes from farms run by people who are more likely to care about the health of our soil, water, and air, the living conditions of livestock, and the flora and fauna around the farm. Produce of organic farming is less likely to have trace residues of pesticides, artificial fertilizers, and antibiotics, and is guaranteed free from GM (genetically modified) material.

Organic certifiers permit only a small range of artificial additives to be used in processed foods while more than 500 may be used in non-organic foods.

Nutrients boost

Organic farming seems to boost nutrient content. A recent UK study found 71 percent more omega-3 fats (best for the heart) in organic than conventionally farmed milk. In another study, organic spinach was shown to have 100 percent more iron and manganese than regular crops; deficiencies of both minerals are common in later life. The antioxidant vitamin E has been found to be as much as 50 percent more potent in organic crops.

Organic priorities

Add a few organic staples to your shopping cart each week if you can’t afford to convert to a totally organic diet. American magazine Worth the Money suggests prioritizing the following foods:

• dairy foods

• poultry and eggs

• meat

• apples and pears

• raspberries and strawberries

• cherries

• nectarines and peaches

• non-American grapes

• celery and peppers

• potatoes

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Eating Disorder

Could this be you? You don’t have much self-confidence (this applies most often to females, but males are not immune). You’d love to feel in charge of yourself, your emotions, your life. You’d do anything to be someone others love and admire. You don’t feel any of these things are true — for you.

Add to this that you live in a culture that tells you the world is yours if you’re thin. That you, or anyone, can become model-thin (or fat-free buff) if you just diet and exercise enough.

You may be a little precise or obsessive by nature. And you may have fewer of the natural brain hormones that buffer most people in life. You may even have a history of some kind of trauma that you have yet to resolve.

These characteristics are the ingredients for making an eating disorder. Because you feel vulnerable, an eating disorder is, above all else, the way you struggle against internal doubts, trying to cope. Dieting is how you try to put together a sense of control and self-esteem. Bingeing is how you comfort yourself or respond to the extremes of dieting. You have come to rely on your eating disorder symptoms so completely that the thought of surrendering them is terrifying — even when they begin to cause a lot of physical and emotional trouble.

Eating disorders are treacherous. They destroy and even take lives, and they make sufferers doubt and hate themselves. But the happy news is that the majority of people who pitch into treatment and stay with it through recovery get better. They go on to think about and engage in other things, become successful and fulfilled, and leave their eating disorders behind. So can you.

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