Trigger Warning: This article, written by a Nivati counselor, is about eating disorders. Please call 911 in case of an emergency and reach out to your counselor or a hotline like SAMHSA for mental health support. For more hotlines, check out nivati.com/emergency.
National Eating Disorders Awareness Week 2023 is from Monday, February 27th to Sunday, March 5th. This national campaign aims to create awareness and support by offering education and resources to the general public to help promote health and wellbeing for individuals and families affected by eating disorders.
According to the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA), this campaign centers around lived experiences and eating disorder education, which is essential for promoting awareness and change. Greater recognition and understanding of eating disorders helps those affected by providing the guidance to identify disordered eating and reduce stigma, and the tools to discuss this complex and sensitive topic, ultimately helping connect individuals to the treatment they need.
Learning more about eating disorders, the symptoms of disordered eating, and how to talk to your loved ones about this topic is an excellent way to honor this year’s National Eating Disorders Awareness Week campaign.
Understanding Eating Disorders
Most people are familiar with one or two of the commonly discussed eating disorders. However, clinically speaking, there are several official diagnoses that don’t necessarily always fit the “textbook” criteria or presentation that most might imagine an eating disorder to look like. Individuals with eating disorders can have any body size or shape, be any age, race, or gender, and may have a wide, and non-standard variance of behaviors.
Eating disorders are understood to be serious but treatable mental and physical illnesses characterized by severe and persistent disturbance in eating behaviors along with distressing thoughts and emotions associated with body image, eating, and exercise.
Simply put, eating disorders are harmful patterns of behavior that make an individual feel unbalanced, dysregulated, and unwell about their body appearance, food, or exercise. These disorders can affect anyone and can present real harm to a person’s physical, mental, social, and emotional wellness.
Eating disorders are, by their very nature, sensitive and challenging to talk about. Eating disorders have been commonly misrepresented by the media and widely stigmatized. A lot of people can’t help but feel like their weight and appearance are intrinsically tied to their self-worth and social value in a society that constantly prioritizes body ideals that aren’t easily accessible to everyone naturally. Even normal, healthy bodies have been known to be stigmatized and shamed in social media, movies, and TV. It is a no-brainer that this is a very complex topic for most people.
For many individuals, discussing eating disorders brings up mixed and often painful feelings about their own relationship with their bodies, exercise, and food.
If you have a difficult relationship with your body, food, or exercise you may find it helpful to reach out for support. A licensed therapist can help you work through past painful experiences, and, if it is appropriate, they can help you figure out if you would benefit from meeting with a specialist. Opening up about difficult topics is uncomfortable but important. By opening up, we are able to destigmatize common mental health challenges and promote a more balanced mental, emotional, and physical health scape.
Myths And Misconceptions About Eating Disorders
- Eating Disorders are a Choice. Eating disorders are not a “lifestyle choice” or a diet. Individuals do not choose to have disordered eating at all. Eating disorders are complex medical and psychiatric illnesses.
- Parents are Responsible for their Children’s Eating Disorders. Parents are not to blame for their children’s eating disorders. Several research papers investigated and found that although parents are not to be blamed for eating disorders, there are ways to create a recovery-promoting home environment.
- Eating Disorders Only Affect Women. Eating disorders can affect anyone and research shows they are being treated in a growing number of males and non-binary individuals.
- Eating Disorders Only Happen to Teens or Young Adults. Eating disorders can develop or re-emerge in anyone at any stage of life. Although most people report eating disorders in their teens and young adulthood, there is evidence that people are being diagnosed at younger ages, or experience a re-emergence of disordered eating behaviors in later life stages.
The Seriousness of Eating Disorders
Statistics indicate just how serious disordered eating is. With a 10% mortality rate, eating disorders have one of the highest mortality rates of any mental health issue, surpassed only by opioid addiction.
Treating an eating disorder should be done by a mental health professional who specializes in this topic because treating eating disorders requires a lot of specific and tailored knowledge to get the unique patient the appropriate treatments. It is especially true when treating eating disorders that treatment is not a “one-size-fits-all” approach.
Safely treating eating disorders also requires that the professional understands the mind and body as a whole and is able to effectively stabilize the individual medically prior to addressing the mental health component when necessary.
Because disordered eating can have dire outcomes for the affected individuals and their families, it is essential to have safe spaces for learning and talking about this issue. The heartening news around National Eating Disorder Awareness Week is that disordered eating is treatable, and those who experience eating disorders have hope for recovery and long, happy, healthy lives.
Understanding the Warning Signs and Symptoms of Disordered Eating
Understanding the warning signs and symptoms of disordered eating may help save a life. The signs of an eating disorder will vary by individual, and different eating disorders present differently; however, there are some broad categories of warning signs to look out for.
Emotional and Behavioral Warning Signs
The primary emotional and behavioral warning signs of an eating disorder include heightened attention to or preoccupation with weight loss, body appearance, diet, and food.
Individuals with eating disorders can have mood swings and may seem more worried about things like counting calories, avoiding carbohydrates, skipping meals, or eliminating certain foods altogether. Individuals may also seem hypercritical of their appearance, may check the mirror excessively, and may be overly preoccupied with weight loss or exercise.
Physical Warning Signs
When an individual is struggling with an eating disorder, they may notice physical changes as well. Physical warning signs of an eating disorder will vary based on the type of eating disorder; however, there are some general physical changes that may indicate the presence of an eating disorder.
Some of these changes may include weight fluctuation, either up or down, and gastrointestinal, menstrual, cognitive, or sleep issues. Eating disorders may cause the individual to experience a range of physical impairments including difficulty healing from wounds, poor immune function, dental issues, and dry or brittle skin, hair, and nails. Depending on the type of eating disorder, an individual may have scrapes or bruises on the backs of their hands from self-induced vomiting.
Treatments and Therapies for Eating Disorders
Professionals recommend that individuals with concerns about disordered eating behaviors seek treatment early due to the higher associated risks of suicide and medical complications.
Treatment plans for eating disorders may need to start with addressing and stabilizing any physical complications as a first step. For individuals who are physically stable, treatment will include interventions designed to address the mental and emotional aspects of disordered eating. For some individuals, treating co-occurring mental health issues like anxiety and depression is also an essential part of recovery.
Because there are many different eating disorders, treatment plans are customized to the individual and their specific needs but can include in-patient, residential, day treatment, or out-patient treatment, and a combination of the following:
- Individual therapy
- Group therapy
- Family therapy, particularly when young individuals experiencing eating disorders are still living with their caregivers
- Medical care and monitoring
- Dental care
- Nutritional counseling
- Medications
How Employers and Leaders Can Help
Employers and company leaders can support this year’s National Eating Disorder Awareness Week 2023 campaign by learning how to identify and talk to people suffering from eating disorders. Leaders can also lead by example and participate in making their workplace a safe environment for individuals to be human and experience challenges by having open, respectful, and supportive conversations about mental health.
Related: Actionable Ways HR Can Support Employees in all 8 Areas of Wellness
As an employer, you can support employees by focusing on creating an inclusive company culture, free from judgment and stigma around mental health issues. Employers can provide access to care by offering programs such as an Employee Assistance Program that includes mental health counseling and therapy services, many of which provide on-demand and flexible tools and services.
Finally, leaders and HR professionals can help by promoting employee wellbeing through stress management and wellness initiatives. Read more here on How to Create a Stress Management Program for Employees.
Disclaimer
By participating in/reading the service/website/blog/email series on this website, you acknowledge that this is a personal website/blog and is for informational purposes and should not be seen as mental health care advice. You should consult with a licensed professional before you rely on this website/blog’s information. All things written on this website should not be seen as therapy treatment and should not take the place of therapy or any other health care or mental health advice. Always seek the advice of a mental health care professional or physician. The content on this blog is not meant to and does not substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
