(I cannot address this fully in this space, but please take a look here and here if you need more information on how to approach it.)
Among many holiday traditions in my house is cookie-baking and eating. Food kind of links all of our holiday traditions—Christmas movies are accompanied by popcorn and cookies, gifts for friends and neighbors are usually sweet baked goods, and any get-together with friends or family involves perpetual snacking. All that to say, if you struggle with body image and eating habits, the holidays are rough. So if you are someone on the outside of that, trying to help a friend or family member through a difficult and frustrating time, here are a few things to remember as you interact with them.
The first and perhaps most important thing to remember is that eating disorders are rarely simply a superficial desire to be skinny. It tends to be a stereotype that teenage or twenty-something women are prone to eating disorders. And there is truth to this. There is a lot of pressure at this point in our lives--as young women with potential, our whole lives ahead of us—to look “perfect” or desirable. But often this is far down on the fundamental problems. When I first started struggling with my eating habits and body image in high school and early college, I was determined that I was only being conscious of my health and the food that I was consuming. I was vegetarian because it was my choice, and I exercised in order to discipline myself mentally and physically. I didn’t like what I saw in the mirror, but my need to control what that image became was much deeper than a dislike of what I looked like. I wanted to be desirable on a deeper level and knew that I wasn’t, and I wanted to be able to improve myself on the only level I felt capable of improving. So if you know someone that may be struggling with eating habits or body image, please know that saying “You look great!” or “You don’t need to worry about that—eat something!” is only addressing them on a level that’s not truly their predominant difficulty. And brushing aside superficial comments or complimenting someone’s character rather than their appearance (though a great start) is not necessarily going to change them in the long run.
Another thing to remember is that unhealthy eating habits are not simply anorexia and bulimia. A lot more people than you’d think struggle with disordered eating, and this is a lot more subtle than starvation or induced-vomiting. Sometimes it’s the transition stage into something more drastic—binge-eating, over-consciousness of calorie-content, or other more internalized struggles of guilt or shame regarding eating habits. A lot of people struggle with intense guilt after eating too many carbs or too much sugar, and this is a form of disordered eating. My own struggles with over-exercising or vegetarianism would probably be categorized as disordered (or unhealthy) eating rather than an eating disorder. But I didn’t have a healthy self-image and was well on my way to hurting myself further. From an outside perspective, I understand the difficulty to approach the struggle—eating disorders are touchy subjects whether they’re a reality or not, and if someone is struggling with the in-between of disordered eating, it’s not a subject you can easily broach. I know from experience that the first step is convincing oneself that one’s eating habits are purely health-conscious.
Furthermore, eating disorders are not as simple as a “yes or no” choice. Eating disorders are a progression, and I never woke up and faced breakfast-time with an explicit “I’d rather not today.” Eating disorders are in many cases an addiction, and they can’t be treated with something as simple as an outside “okay” to eat and/or gain weight. The obsession grows and intensifies, and quickly begins to escape one’s control. So please, if you are on the outside of this and trying to help someone—thank you, truly, but unfortunately in the long run it is not going to be changed by your affirmation.
And this brings me to my last and one of my most important points—you cannot change them. This doesn’t mean (at all) that you should give up, that you should ignore them or brush their eating habits and self-loathing under the rug. That’s how they progress to an out-of-control level. But there is only so much that you can do. Eating disorders are often tied to mental disorders like depression or anxiety, and those aren’t fixed overnight. Eating disorders are manifestations of a deeper problem that won’t be fixed with one word from you. I wish it were. Eating disorders suck. But please don’t stop trying. It’s a hard thing to accept oneself, but if there’s no one else around to accept you, it’s even harder.
