I’m thrilled to make the first post on our new website. If you have already seen us, have another look around and let us know what you think, what we could add.
Im trying to keep it simple and not confuse people with too much chatter. I will blog here and you may find expanded versions of my thoughts about topical issues on my blogsite http://deannetalks.blogspot.com Watch this space!
I wonder how everyone is managing now that Christmas is almost upon us. When things are tough, the one thing we want to do is indulge on warm tasty food. How are you coping?
From the persepctive of someone who suffers.
Recovering from an eating disorder isn’t just about the skills of the therapist. There is so much research out there about treatment, causes, associations and outcome studies. But we need to hear it from the horse’s mouth to be really present and available for the people we want to help.
Maybe our job is to help people to want to get better; to make recovery seem more attractive than staying ill. We must beware about being too enthusiastic about this. It would be like trying to convince someone gay that they would find life better if they were straight. We must realise how scary change can be.
Then our job is to guide them along more helpful pathways, not look back and find something or someone to blame. The client is the expert, not us, as Emma Woolf showed us in her memoire of recovery, “An Apple A Day”. But, the client still needs us by their side as what… A therapist? A mentor? A guru? They need our wisdom alongside their own.
This is what they tell us aids their recovery; in no order of importance
Reconnection: – but not, I think the pro anorexia, community. People with eating problems often fear being ordinary and unimportant but this isn’t the most helpful way to show how unique you really are. They say that things like YOGA, JOURNALING and SPIRITUALITY helps them to reconnect to themselves. Therapists please take note!
Close relationships: Relationships aren’t always helpful so we need to learn more about this.
Statements of support: Parents and carers need to say “I’m there for you” – what other statements are useful and what are not. If someone says “You are looking better these days” it can send your client into a spiral of worry.
Empathetic Friends: Friends keep away from someone with an eating disorder because they feel they have to tread on glass. Or they just avoid the subject altogether. I need to know, what exactly is an “empathetic friend?”
Compassion: we have to feel sorry for someone, not just be angry with them. They also need to learn to feel some compassion for themselves. Eating disorders are such hard work.
Therapy: it’s good to know that therapy helps as well, but looking forward is more important than looking back.
Learning HOW to eat healthfully: There are too many bad rules out there about food so people are scared of useful foods like carbs. I would add that learning the real facts about food as well as practicing mindful eating skills is great. Use eating experiences as experiments to banish fear about weight gain. Getting back in touch with appetite with proper training is much more helpful than simply persuading people to “eat properly.”
Education about the effects of the disorder: This has to be done with compassion not as a threat.
Acknowledgement The Journal of Treatment And Prevention Bruner Mazel May-June 2012
We try to provide this help to people with eating problems. If there is anything that we can do or write to help people on their recovery journey, let us know. A quick email to admin@ncfed.com will always guarantee a personal reply from the Founder, Deanne
Last night I walked down Marylebone HIgh Street, London. Every two yards there was another place to eat, a Pain Quotidien, a cafe, an epicerie, a Costa Coffee and a cake shop from heaven. People were eating as they walked along the street.
20 years ago I walked down the same street and every 100 yards there was a place to eat and very few people ate as they walked.
40 years ago I walked down Marylebone High Street. There were no places to eat, lots of other shops and no one ate as they walked.
They assume that people who gain weight are weak willed. On the contrary, people who keep their weight stable have to work really hard 24 hours a day 7 days a week to avoid – like bouncing bagatelles- the food they see around them saying “eat me now, you will feel nice, I will give you a lift, you don’t need to be hungry -you just need to be wanting a bit of fun and what’s the harm in that”.
On top of that are the dangers that we can’t see; the men who made us fat have inserted them quietly into the food we eat. Corn syrup, tastes so nice but it is food that our body cannot deal with properly. Relax, have a beer, or a bit of ketchup on your chips. It will make you fat while it makes them rich.
Going to put petrol in your car? Have a chocolate bar, it will reward you for doing all that hard work. They made it big so you would spend more money and feel virtuous because you hadn’t bought 2 bars. They knew that you would eat it all up in one go because thats what people do. And while you were scoffing it made them rich.
Did you know that the food industry has blackmailed, denigrated, rubbished and possibly even murdered the people who wanted to tell you the truth. They have bought or crushed the politicians who could have done something about this. They wanted to make you fat so that you would need what they had to sell you.
And everyone is frightened of taking them on.See that giant bag of crisps? See that double caramel flavoured frappucino? JUST SAY NO.
Today there is a big fuss about anorexia in the press. Does this make it even more important to ban underweight models from our catwalks. Or is anorexia nothing to do with the size of models. You might like to see what I have written on my Eating Angel Blog
I will be blogging here about food, weight, eating disorders, childrens issues, body image and everything to do with food and weight. I am also known as the Eating Angel and you can find my larger blog right here. If you want me to blog about something specially interesting to you, just let me know
Upholding the right to give enteral feeding to someone too sick to decide. Read more on my blog
