By BodyMatters therapist Kassie Bottalico
Recovering from an eating disorder is notoriously difficult. It is challenging because often the eating disorder serves a purpose for the person. People often do not want to change their eating habits as they are fearful of weight gain, so in essence people are often at best ambivalent about recovery.
Part of recovery includes reducing dieting behaviour and shifting focus to a healthy balanced diet and lifestyle. It is difficult for someone who has an eating disorder to reconcile this by acknowledging that cutting out food groups or limiting the amount of food they consume is actually unhealthy. This is made so much more difficult by ‘diet talk’. When people around us talk about food in a negative manner labelling food ‘bad’ or ‘naughty’, or they discuss their latest dieting attempt it is hard for us not to sit and assess our own eating habits. Now imagine how that would affect someone who is already obsessing about their eating habits and already extremely uncomfortable about the new choices they are challenging themselves to make. Often people who are suffering from an eating disorder compare themselves to those around them and think ‘if she isn’t eating anymore than I have to stop’. The diet talk creates unhealthy competition.
How can you help?
Stop the diet talk! You wouldn’t take a recovering alcoholic to a bar! By removing the diet talk, you remove the additional pressure to engage in eating disorder behaviour. This means no mention of diets, no mention of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ food, no mention of ‘fat’ or body shaming, no discussion of weight. Once you start paying attention to reducing diet talk, you will be surprised to see how often it comes up in conversation!
