Category Archives: Nutrition

Emotional Eating

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Last week, I received the following email from one of my patients:

“I wanted to touch base about a concept that keeps coming up in food podcasts/books/articles, etc. The idea of ‘emotional eating,’ and what that even means. I understand that it is the idea of food being comforting and thus using it as a coping mechanism, but isn’t food almost always tied with emotion (happy, guilty, satisfied/pleased, disappointed, etc.)?

“I think this concept is referring to eating when not hungry to deal rather than other ways, but often I hear rethinking if that cupcake in the middle of the afternoon is what you need or to call a friend or go for a walk.’ Yes, I agree that sometimes if I am tired, I will crave these foods, and realize I just need a nap. However, what if I crave a sweet snack in the middle of the afternoon, after lunch, because I am hungry and that’s what I want? To be honest, I don’t love this idea because it feels judge-y. Am I interpreting it wrong?

“Also, on a Friday after a long week, I look forward to a drink, a meal of my choice, and some popcorn in front of the TV. Does that make me an ‘emotional eater,‘ too? I don’t think that is wrong but maybe this is not how I should be coping with stress…? Thanks!”

“Emotional eating” is a buzzword phrase that seems to be everywhere lately. Many of my patients come to me to help them stop “emotionally eating” because they see it as a problem or a failure on their part. I thought it might be a good idea to explain what I believe emotional eating is and what it isn’t and whether it should be seen as problematic or not.

From the time that we are babies, feeding (i.e., via breast milk or formula) is one of the very first ways our parents/caretakers take care of us and show us love. Feeding and eating are primal actions that serve as a way to keep us alive; we depend on our caretakers to help us with this at the beginning. When a baby is hungry, he or she will cry, and the caretaker will provide nourishment to take away the feelings of discomfort from hunger and give the baby satisfaction. This basic hunger-crying-feeding-satisfaction loop happens over and over again and basically cements itself in the infant’s brain that the only way to get rid of one’s uncomfortable hunger is to cry until mom or dad gives the infant nourishment. This way, a very strong connection is forged between food and love as our caretakers are the first ones in our lives who provide both of these necessities to us.

As we grow up, food and eating situations are often connected with emotions. For instance, you might have very strong and fond memories of your grandmother’s apple pie and how lovingly she served it to you on special occasions. Or perhaps you remember how your dad used to make you the perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwich for school every day, cutting off the crusts just so, and how this made you feel loved and special. We collect these eating/emotion experiences throughout our lifetime, and as a result of this, we can elicit some of the above emotions by eating some of the associated foods.

I believe that while eating can often be associated with emotions, it does not necessarily need to be problematic. When most people nowadays use the term “emotional eating,” I believe they are referring to the behavior of trying to cope with negative emotions or situations by eating comfort food in the absence of hunger. In my opinion, someone occasionally dealing with their emotions by eating is not a big deal, but if it becomes a chronic habit that is bringing discomfort or pain and/or not truly helping to assuage that person’s negative emotion or situation, that would be something to be curious about in a very neutral and self-compassionate way. It’s important to realize that feeding ourselves comfort food sometimes even if we are not hungry is one way that we are trying to take care of ourselves. It might not be the most helpful or effective way to give ourselves self-care, but it is a self-care attempt nonetheless.

In response to my patient’s thought that food is “almost always tied with emotion,” I would say that many eating situations are not necessarily connected with emotion. For instance, I had an apple and a piece of cheese for snack today, and while it was tasty and satisfying, I didn’t have any emotions associated with it. I also think one can crave a cupcake in the afternoon for no other reason than it is what they are humming for at the time. It doesn’t have to be emotional.

At the end of the day, “emotional eating” is something that nearly everyone engages in from time to time. In and of itself, it doesn’t need to be a problem, but if it becomes the only way that you cope with negative feelings or situations and it is bringing you distress, it would be worth it to try and develop other coping strategies (with the help of a therapist) to deal with these feelings/situations in a more constructive manner.

He Said, She Said: Clean Eating

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He Said

The phrase “clean eating” never arose in nutrition school, and the only time I have seen it appear in a peer-reviewed journal article was in reference to behaviors that could be described as disordered eating. That should tell us something.

Pop culture nutrition is, after all, quite different from scientific nutrition, and “clean eating” resides squarely in the former. Given the nature of “clean eating,” let us look in that direction for its definition. “Clean eating is a deceptively simple concept,” according to Fitness Magazine. “Rather than revolving around the idea of ingesting more or less of specific things (for instance, fewer calories or more protein), the idea is more about being mindful of the food’s pathway between its origin and your plate. At its simplest, clean eating is about eating whole foods, or ‘real’ foods — those that are un- or minimally processed, refined, and handled, making them as close to their natural form as possible.”

Unsaid is the prevalent cultural implication that “minimally processed, refined, and handled” foods – “clean” foods, in other words – are healthier than foods that do not fit this description. While the concept of emphasizing foods that are less processed has some merit, the message is so oversimplified and rounded off that it is more problematic than useful.

For someone trying to keep his blood sugar steady, whole grains might be more conducive to achieving this goal than more refined grains would be because the former tend to be higher in fiber and protein compared to their white counterparts, which are stripped of these nutrients during processing (although these nutrients, and others, are sometimes added back via fortification).

In other cases though, foods that are more processed might actually be the better choice. For example, I think of one of my patients, a young woman who had lost her period for many months due to nutrient deficiency, and it was not until we increased her intake of more-refined foods – which tend to be more calorically dense – that her period returned.

What constitutes a healthy choice for someone really depends on the individual, their needs, their preferences, and other factors that are unique to them. One of the problems with the way our society talks about food is the individual gets lost. For example, we talk about foods being “good for you” or “not good for you,” but who is the “you” in question? Almost always, the phrases refer to a monolithic representation of the population that probably does not take into account the unique characteristics that separate each of us from the pack. Talking in generalities has its place (No matter who you are, drinking paint thinner is not good for you.), but way too often that kind of oversimplified talk is misleading at best and damaging at worst.

Consider the good/bad food dichotomy embedded within “clean eating.” Foods unworthy of the “clean” label are, what then, “dirty”? If you have ever dieted, remember what it was like to consume foods that were frowned upon in the context of the diet. Most likely, ingestion of a small amount of a forbidden food triggered overconsumption of said food, not because of any objective qualities inherent to the food, but rather because of the overarching subjective eating experience. We eat a little bit of “dirty” food, figure today is ruined anyway, so we might as well have some more – whether we intuitively feel like more or not – and resolve to start over “clean” tomorrow.

Clean vs. dirty, good vs. bad, sin vs. virtue, these are issues of morality and spirituality that have infiltrated the world of nutrition. Alan Levinovitz, a religion professor who has taken to writing about nutrition in recent years because of the intersectionality of spirituality and food, explains, “It’s terrifying to live in a place where the causes of diseases like Alzheimer’s, autism, or ADHD, or the causes of weight gain, are mysterious. So what we do is come up with certain causes for the things that we fear. If we’re trying to avoid things that we fear, why would we invent a world full of toxins that don’t really exist? Again, it’s about control. After all, if there are things that we’re scared of, then at least we know what to avoid. If there is a sacred diet, and if there are foods that are really taboo, yeah, it’s scary, but it’s also empowering, because we can readily identify culinary good and evil, and then we have a path that we can follow that’s salvific.”

Hence, we invent a construct of “clean eating” that is based less on science and more on profound issues of humanity. Understandable as this behavior may be, I cannot say strongly enough: Our relationships with food become much less fraught when we remove issues of moralization, sin, and virtue from our food choices and eating behaviors.

 

She Said

Many of my patients with eating disorders (EDs) and/or disordered eating have engaged in “clean eating” at some point in their lives. The practice of eating only unprocessed, organic, additive-free foods that have the highest nutrient value seems to be the diet du jour for many people right now. And I get it – many of us want to live the longest and healthiest lives we can, and one of the ways we can take care of ourselves is by being aware of what food we put in our bodies. Take a look at any viral “food science” article or video online and you will hear doctors, dietitians, and other health care practitioners and researchers telling you that if you eat this one food (or don’t eat this one food), you can expect to live longer (or die sooner) – as if every food decision we make over the course of the day has the power to lengthen or shorten our lives. It makes it seem like we have so much control over our health, that if only we eat the right things, we will never have illness and will live forever. Of course, this is just not true (case in point: fitness guru Bob Harper’s recent heart attack).

Given the oversimplified and misleading fashion in which food-related information is often presented in the media, nutrition must seem like an ever-changing landscape. Sure, the field is evolving just like every other facet of health care, but not as radically or quickly as the public is led to believe. Every month, a new “super food” is unveiled and promises to improve our energy, stave off cancer, prevent heart disease, and so on and so on. Never mind that just a month earlier this food might have been on the “unhealthy” food list (I’m looking at you, coconut oil.). The point is that nutrition is always evolving, and trying to keep up with all of the foods we “should” and “shouldn’t” eat is exhausting. Yet, so many of my patients are obsessed with eating only the most nutritious, healthiest foods. They emphatically believe that some foods are inherently virtuous and clean, worthy of being ingested, while other foods are a waste of money and have no business being called food. And I believe that this is a big problem.

Food is not just fuel. Let me repeat this again. Food is not just fuel. Food is connection; it’s tradition, rituals, and how we care for ourselves and others. Food can elicit some of our most cherished memories (e.g., grandma’s famous chocolate chip cookies), and food can comfort us at times. I know that “emotional eating” has been deemed a problem by many, but really, it’s okay to eat emotionally at times. In fact, it’s completely normal! For people with EDs and disordered eating, sometimes the act of eating food can be agonizing, physically, emotionally, and mentally. I can’t count how many times I have heard some version of the following from my patients: “I wish I didn’t have to eat food, that I could just get all of my needed nutrients from an IV. It would make life so much easier.” These types of sentiments break my heart.

For individuals with EDs or disordered eating, breaking foods up into “good/bad” or “clean/unhealthy” categories is de rigueur. By having clear-cut rules about what is okay and not okay to eat, these individuals feel safer and in control (Of course, we know that really, the opposite is true – these rules control the individual.). In my work with my patients, I try to help these patients challenge their food rules. This might be having them eat a formerly loved food that they have not allowed themselves to eat due to perceived lack of nutritive value. We will also discuss the value of eating a wide variety of foods, that all foods fit, even Oreos. For most of these patients, they feel that eating less-nutrient-dense foods is a waste of time, that they are “empty calories” and have no business being eaten. I have had to justify more times than I can count why Oreos might sometimes be a better choice for a snack than an apple.

What it comes down to is this: Is eating “clean” really improving your life? Aside from perhaps improving some physical health markers, how are the other aspects of your life? Are you able to share meals with others? Are you able to partake in your child’s birthday cake? Are your food rules running your life or limiting it? These questions are what I would ask a “clean eater” to consider.

He Said, She Said: Whole30®

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He Said

Earlier in my career, I worked at a medical clinic where part of my job was to put people on a 28-day “detox” program, when ordered to do so by the doctors, for reasons ranging from digestive woes to problems with fertility. For those four weeks, the patient abstained from gluten, dairy, soy, eggs, peanuts, shellfish, corn, and other foods deemed to inflame the body. At the end of the four weeks was the possibility of reintroducing the forbidden foods in systematic fashion in hopes of determining the impact of each.

If the protocol, rationale, and reasons for use sound familiar to you, that may be because they are all strikingly similar to those of the Whole30® program. “Strip them from your diet completely,” the Whole30 program’s website says of the demonized foods. “Cut out all the psychologically unhealthy, hormone-unbalancing, gut-disrupting, inflammatory food groups for a full 30 days. Let your body heal and recover from whatever effects those foods may be causing. Push the ‘reset’ button with your metabolism, systemic inflammation, and the downstream effects of the food choices you’ve been making. Learn once and for all how the foods you’ve been eating are actually affecting your day to day life, and your long term health. The most important reason to keep reading? This will change your life.”

Oh, Whole30 might change your life all right, but perhaps not in the ways that you hope. Let’s take a closer look at the program and examine three questions that address how the claims and expectations stack up against what really happens when someone embarks on such a journey.

(1) Are the excluded foods (added sugar, alcohol, grains, legumes, dairy, carrageenan, monosodium glutamate [MSG], and sulfites) really “psychologically unhealthy, hormone-unbalancing, gut-disrupting, inflammatory food groups”?

In short, no, the connection between food and our bodies is not that simple. Taking a step back in order to gain a macroscopic view of life, we see that few of us are comfortable with murkiness and uncertainty, and this overarching theme weaves its way through our relationships with food. Our yearning for crisp delineations leads to an oversimplified good/bad food dichotomy that might make us feel at ease, but really, it is nothing more than the application of scapegoating to nutrition.

Alan Levinovitz, a religion professor who has taken to writing about nutrition in recent years because of the intersectionality of spirituality and food, explains, “It’s terrifying to live in a place where the causes of diseases like Alzheimer’s, autism, or ADHD, or the causes of weight gain, are mysterious. So what we do is come up with certain causes for the things that we fear. If we’re trying to avoid things that we fear, why would we invent a world full of toxins that don’t really exist? Again, it’s about control. After all, if there are things that we’re scared of, then at least we know what to avoid. If there is a sacred diet, and if there are foods that are really taboo, yeah, it’s scary, but it’s also empowering, because we can readily identify culinary good and evil, and then we have a path that we can follow that’s salvific.”

(2) The Whole 30 website reads, “We want you to take this seriously, and see amazing results in unexpected areas.” What about that?

One of the confounding factors, and indeed one of the greatest challenges, with elimination diets is the power of suggestion inherent to unblinded experiments. If someone wants to test if dairy is responsible for whatever symptom is ailing him, he might first cut out dairy, wait for the symptom to subside, and then add back dairy systematically to see if the symptom returns. He knows whether he is pouring himself a glass of cow’s milk or a dairy-free alternative though, and this knowledge can influence the presence or absence of the symptom in question via placebo or nocebo effects.

For example, consider the patients I wrote about a few years ago who told me how much better they felt after cutting out gluten while they – unbeknownst to them – were still consuming gluten in abundance. They expected the exclusion of gluten to produce a positive result, so the mere belief that they had done it created the desired outcome.

By scapegoating the to-be-excluded foods before the program begins, Whole30 builds expectations that their removal will yield positive results. By guiding participants to consider “results in unexpected areas,” the program throws a bunch of crap against the wall, assuming some of it will stick. You may remember that scene in Ghost in which the psychic, played by Whoopi Goldberg, offers name after name until she hits on one that her client – who fails to see through the sham – recognizes and takes as proof of a metaphysical connection to the afterlife. Similarly, the likelihood is that over the course of 30 days, at least one facet of your wellbeing will improve, even if temporarily, and Whole30 is banking on you giving credit to the program when in fact another factor could very well be responsible. 

(3) What happens beginning on day 31 and beyond?

“We cannot possibly put enough emphasis on this simple fact—the next 30 days will change your life,” the Whole30 website reads. “It will change the way you think about food, it will change your tastes, it will change your habits and your cravings. It could, quite possibly, change the emotional relationship you have with food, and with your body. It has the potential to change the way you eat for the rest of your life.”

If your expectation is that after 30 days of abstinence, you will no longer have the taste for or cravings for the foods you excluded over the past month, you will probably be quite disappointed. “A review of the literature and research on food restriction indicates that inhibiting food intake has consequences that may not have been anticipated by those attempting such restriction,” wrote Janet Polivy, a psychology professor at the University of Toronto. “Starvation and self-imposed dieting appear to result in eating binges once food is available and in psychological manifestations such as preoccupation with food and eating, increased emotional responsiveness and dysphoria, and distractibility.”

In other words, you will likely be drawn to the excluded foods more than before the program began and overconsume them. The overeating further reinforces your preconceived notion that these foods are a problem. You may even begin to believe that you have a “food addiction” and eliminate the food again, not realizing that your presumed treatment is exacerbating the supposed problem.

Back in my days of implementing the 28-day detox program, such rebound eating was commonplace, and I had many repeat patients who did the detox over and over again in the earnest belief that the latest attempt would turn out differently than all of the ones that came before it. They blamed themselves when really the program was a setup for failure.

Taking a look at the Whole30 website, I see similar red flags planted to expunge the program of responsibility while erroneously placing the blame for potential failure squarely on the shoulders of participants. “Don’t you dare tell us this is hard. Beating cancer is hard. Birthing a baby is hard. Losing a parent is hard. Drinking your coffee black. Is. Not. Hard. You’ve done harder things than this, and you have no excuse not to complete the program as written,” the site reads. “Don’t even consider the possibility of a ‘slip.’ Unless you physically tripped and your face landed in a box of doughnuts, there is no ‘slip.’ You make a choice to eat something unhealthy. It is always a choice, so do not phrase it as if you had an accident.”

See through the enticing marketing and realize that diets like Whole30 are unlikely to produce long-term positive results and are more likely to pave the way for weight cycling and an unhealthy relationship with food while making you feel responsible for their failures.

 

She Said

While the Whole30 program has been around for a few years (It was created in 2009 by two “sports nutritionists.”), it feels like I have been hearing a lot more about it recently. And since we recently rang in the New Year, there seemed to be a surge of Whole30 talk both inside and outside my office. Many of my patients have asked me about the eating plan that emphasizes eating “whole” (i.e., minimally processed) foods while avoiding dairy, soy, sugar, alcohol, grains and legumes for 30 days and then strategically reintroducing these foods one by one to see how they affect one’s health, energy and stress levels. One patient of mine is getting married this month, and her husband-to-be and many of her family members are following the Whole30 to start “shedding for the wedding.” Go on any “healthy eating” Instagram page and you will find #Whole30 all over the place, with people posting their “clean” meals and extolling the virtues of this way of eating.

As you can guess, I am not a fan of Whole30, or any fad diet for that matter. Not only is it just another way for someone to try to manipulate their food using external rules to shrink their waistline, but it also promotes the “good food/bad food” dichotomy, which can lead to a lifetime of dieting and never having a healthy relationship with food or one’s body. For someone who is predisposed to developing an eating disorder (ED), following a plan like Whole30 could be especially dangerous because diets are often the gateway to EDs. In fact, many of my patients who struggle with EDs have tried Whole30 (or similar eating plans) and have found that it worsened their ED symptoms.

The tricky thing about the Whole30 is that on the surface it sounds good – the authors talk about the health benefits one can expect to reap by following the program and how eating unprocessed foods can improve one’s health and happiness. The plan suggests that there is a “right” and “wrong” way to eat and that if one follows their food rules, they will live a longer, healthier life. In a way, it kind of smacks of orthorexia (i.e., an obsession with eating in a “perfect” manner) to me, which is tricky, as a number of people want to eat “correctly” and view food simply as fuel for our bodies that should always be of the highest nutrient value. It’s not a bad thing to want to eat healthfully and reap the benefits, but I firmly believe that flexibility is key to developing a healthy relationship with food and one’s body. Eating Oreo cookies is not a death sentence, and eating fruits and vegetables will not necessarily lead to you avoiding dying from cancer. What matters is the overall makeup of our diets, recognizing that all foods fit and that sometimes cookies are the right choice in certain situations.

Diets are seductive – they make lots of promises about how you are going to feel, how your body will change, and how your health will improve. They tell you that by following this arbitrary set of rules, you will reach true nutrition nirvana, all of your ailments will subside, and you will become the best version of yourself. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case, and most people cannot follow such strict guidelines for more than a short while, leading them to backlash by eating all of the “forbidden” foods and feeling like a failure. The very nature of diets is temporary, and any results one experiences during the “honeymoon” phase of a diet will likely dissipate once the dieter cannot follow the plan anymore.

I discourage my patients recovering from EDs from trying a plan like Whole30. In my work with these individuals, I am trying to help them eventually learn to trust their own bodies’ wisdom, that their body will tell them what, when, and how much to eat if they listen hard enough (i.e., intuitive eating). Eating in a way that is enforced by a set of external rules, like Whole30 or any other diet plan, flies directly in the face of this intuitive eating philosophy and can derail progress for many individuals dealing with ED. My advice? Skip the Whole30 and find an intuitive eating specialist who can help you rediscover what foods work for your body and promote your health (mentally, physically, and emotionally).

Wins and Losses: Old Habits Die Hard

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The following piece was written by one of Jonah’s patients who wishes to only be identified as a 36-year-old male.

Befitting the New Year, you would think I’d be writing about my resolutions for 2017, but I have a win from this past Thanksgiving that I’d like to share.

A little about me

I was a dancer as part of a performing arts group, and I traveled throughout the world dancing and performing in various venues — some as big as football stadiums and others as intimate as a small conference room. I was very fortunate to have this experience growing up (I began performing at the age of 16 and “retired” at the age of 26.) and feel grateful to have the talent and courage to pursue this sort of lifestyle. I’ve been to almost every U.S. state (excluding Alaska and the Dakotas) as well as various cities around the world — Paris, Amsterdam, Taiwan, Yokohama, Toronto, etc. I loved seeing all the different cities and how different cultures interacted within themselves, with other cultures, and even with their surroundings.

As you can probably imagine, traveling the world was glorious, but it was not easy by any means. I lived out of a suitcase for 6 months at a time; missing family events while I was on tour was the norm; and our sense of “home” was based on how long we would be staying in Anytown, USA. We were also at the beck and call of the directors and the schedules they created. Rehearsals every day, 7 days a week from 9am to 6pm (or some days even later if we didn’t have a show); additional performances that really strained every minute for “ME” time; and when and what to eat (and usually how much to eat) were always decided for us. It’s not as bad as I just made it seem. Like I said, it was quite glorious. It was nice to not think about the outside world — everyday tasks were managed for me. It really allowed me to focus on why I was there: to be the best performer I could be.

Perfection is attainable…right?

Dancing, much like any other sport, is really tough on the mind, body, and spirit. To be the best, you really have to work hard and be committed to the craft (not to mention have good genes and be somewhat of a natural talent). After all, the producers don’t give solos to the 2nd-best dancer. Dancing is also very specific — there is only one correct way to stand in first position. Any slight variation thereof is, well, simply incorrect. One might perfect their skills in other sports (i.e., one might work hard enough to make 9 out of 10 free throws), but in dance, there is always something that can be improved. So the idea of dancing “perfectly” does not exist. Yet, to be accomplished in dance, you constantly strive for this perfection. The struggle to jump higher is real. Turn faster. Turn faster! TURN FASTER! Even though these pressures mainly came from within myself, I became so worried (and obsessed) about being the best that nothing I did was ever good enough. Somehow, I thought I could achieve something better than perfection.

This battle bled into all aspects of my life: from personal relationships and self-confidence to body image and diets. Especially the latter. I distinctly remember a moment during the high point of my career. We were in dress rehearsal, putting together the finishing touches before our big opening night. At this point, we were all dancing 7 days a week for 6 to 7 hours per day. I was in peak fitness. I also wasn’t eating much because there was a portion of the performance where the men had to perform shirtless, and well, I was self-conscience about that since I wanted to look perfect. I mustn’t have weighed more than 130 pounds (I’m 5’10”.). My director approached me and suggested I watch my diet for the next few days because I would be standing next to some of the other men. She glanced over at the skinniest performer. She didn’t need to say the words, “and you are bigger than he is,” as the look was enough for me to really think about what I was doing and, more importantly, why I was doing it.

That moment was so pivotal to my career as a dancer. For me, dancing was like having a relationship with a double-edged sword. I loved to dance and was so passionate to share that with the world. I was enamored by the craft, while being pricked by both ends, as dancing created an environment that allowed me to neglect healthy eating and nutrition choices. I have trouble dealing with and embracing my own body image (The constant critiques towards a dancer are never-ending.); I struggle with the concept of working out to live a healthy life versus exercising to burn calories/lose weight; and even more, I have a hard time figuring out how to tune in to my body to find what I want to eat, when to eat it, and, more importantly, when to stop eating because I’ve reached an acceptable level of fullness.

Now (over 15 years later), my life is completely different. I’m not dancing anymore, so there’s that. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to dance into retirement, so I decided to pursue a different career and won’t bore you with those details now…just know that my life as a world traveler is much less exciting. What is exciting though is that I’m the leader of my own ship. I am in control of how my story goes, and I’ve come to love this freedom in most aspects of my life.

Setting expectations

Years following, I had the hardest time staying “in shape” — I would try any sport that would help me keep the pounds off: yoga, running, triathlons, obstacle course races. And even though all the training helped to maintain my body shape, I was still unhappy with the results I was experiencing. After talking to my sister-in-law about her nutritionist, I thought I’d give it a shot.

You should’ve seen me in my first session with Jonah — looking back now, I think it was quite comical — I came into the office, strong and confident, ready to establish expectations for our future work. I said, “Listen, you can put me on any kind of diet, but I won’t give up my sweets. I love them too much!” I didn’t realize I had the experience all wrong — it wasn’t about the sweets. I would then be educated about the different theories of nutrition, their applications, and the work I had ahead of me.

During our sessions, we would work on binge eating, recognizing fullness, honoring my hunger, and celebrating my relationship with food. We talked about embracing my body image and what that meant for me. We formalized strategies for upcoming occasions where my old habits would challenge my new relationship with food. Most importantly, we didn’t give up my sweets!

So…about that win!

As I mentioned earlier, I have trouble accepting my level of fullness. I went from being told what to eat to complete eating freedom, so you can imagine the binge eating every Thanksgiving, year after year, leaving the dinner table filled to the brim with stuffing, cranberry sauce, and mashed potatoes. You name it, I would eat it — if I didn’t really like the taste — or even if I was already full — or because there was something about missing out on the taste that I couldn’t let go — or because I didn’t want to upset the host by not eating the food they’d so lovingly prepared for us that day.

I wanted this Thanksgiving to be different from previous years, however. This year, I came to dinner with a plan on how I was going to eat during this meal, and I was determined to stick to it! (Spoiler alert: I did!)

Plan of attack

Through my work with Jonah, we were able to formulate a plan, and it was simple (in theory). I was going to take an inventory of the available foods during our Thanksgiving feast. As I walked around, I recognized foods that were appealing to me — I really tried to tune in to my intuitive eating skills — and what foods I could skip out on. I say “in theory” because by doing inventory, I also had to accept the foods that were appealing and give myself permission to eat those foods without guilt (For the record, I love bread and butter…lots and lots of butter.).

The result: I don’t really like all three varieties of stuffing, I don’t need to eat them all, and no one was going to heckle me about trying them all. Most everyone else was too busy serving themselves anyway. This quick walk-through allowed me to really honor and respect my hunger. It gave me the opportunity to carefully select the foods I was so excited to eat — it was Thanksgiving after all.

For the first time I can remember, I left Thanksgiving dinner feeling comfortable in my own skin (and clothes) by not overeating. I am still on the high from this win, and it helps give me confidence going in to whatever meal comes next. It might not be the most exciting win, nor does it mean I am over battling my other eating issues. But it is a “W” in my column.

Don’t get me wrong

I have good days and bad days. There are days where I eat multiple times throughout the day without ever consulting my intuitive eater. There are times when I feel like I really need to get to the gym to burn off that cookie I had earlier. Even though my day-to-day’s nutrition success fluctuates, what I’ve realized is that it’s a work in progress, and I won’t deny myself (and you shouldn’t either) the ticks in the “W” column (the everyday wins). I’ve earned that “W” and proudly display it on my sleeve (Ok, not literally. I am writing this anonymously, so if I wore a “W” on my sleeve, it might give me away.). You should too. No matter how big or small.

Sh*t Tennis Ladies Say

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As some of you might know, I am an avid tennis player. After a very long hiatus (like 25 years long), I started playing competitive tennis in several different leagues three years ago. It has been so wonderful in so many ways – I love that I get to play a sport that is not only physically enjoyable, but is also a fabulous social network as well. My tennis teammates are some of my closest friends and I adore them.

That’s why sometimes it feels particularly upsetting when many of them speak in anti-fat, pro-diet, disordered ways about food, weight and body shape. All of these women are intelligent, well-spoken, kind-hearted people. All of these women are liberal, open-minded and generous. And nearly all of these women have either made negative comments about their own bodies, commented on others’ bodies, and have engaged in any number of diets/disordered eating patterns. It is truly mind-boggling. I have decided to write about a few of these comments partly as a way to vent, but I also feel like they can be valuable learning lessons for our readers.

Tennis friend: “Oh my goodness, did you see X on the tennis court today? She has lost/gained a ton of weight– doesn’t she look great/terrible?!”

Why these types of statements are problematic: 1) We have very limited control over our weight – our genetics are the key determinant of our body size. And while we can lose weight in the short-term, nearly 95% of dieters regain the weight, with many of them gaining even more weight than they had lost; 2) There could be a number of explanations for someone’s weight loss/gain – are they going through chemotherapy for cancer treatment? Did they recently have a traumatic life event that significantly changed their appetite? Are they on a medication that is causing them to bloat/lose their appetite? 3) These types of comments reinforce the idea that the most important thing about a woman is her physique. We are so much more than our bodies!

Ways that I choose to respond to comments like these:

“I really prefer not to talk about others’ weight – every body is different and unique.”

“Commenting on others bodies makes me uncomfortable – you really never know what someone is going through. She could have a medical condition we are unaware of.”

“Hey, how about we focus on her tennis game rather than her body shape/size?”

Tennis friend: “I’m so hungry.”

Me: “Oh, I have a granola bar in my bag – would you like it?”

Tennis friend: “Oh, no. I’m dieting.”

Why this is problematic: As Jonah and I have written about too many times to count, diets don’t work long term. When we restrict our intake and actively disregard our bodies’ hunger cues, our body goes into starvation mode. This results in a slowing of metabolism, decrease in energy, and heightened awareness and obsession with food. When you feel hungry, that is your body’s way of telling you it needs fuel. It is not a weakness. It is a necessity, like breathing air and drinking water. Not only that, once someone stops dieting (because the inherent nature of dieting is temporary), that person will likely overeat on high-fat/high-carb foods (which are your body’s preferred macronutrients in times of scarcity), and with their slowed metabolism, the weight will pile back on. Unfortunately, many women engage in this yo-yo dieting, which a number of studies have shown to be more damaging to one’s health than just maintaining a higher weight.

Ways I choose to respond to situations like this one:

“Being hungry is your body’s way of telling you it needs food. I guarantee you will feel so much better if you a eat something. I also bet you would have so much more energy to play tennis!”

“It sounds like you have been on quite a few diets over the past year. I know it’s hard to believe, but it is possible to eat in a non-restrictive way and be healthy.”

“Did you see Serena’s last tennis match? She was eating a snack on the changeover. I think she’s onto something!”

Tennis friend: “My knees/ankles/hips are killing me. If I could just lose these 20 lbs, I know that would fix the problem.”

Why this is problematic: As I wrote about several months ago, focusing on weight loss to cure physical ailments is not the right approach. Yes, biomechanically speaking, weighing less might help one’s knee pain resolve, but there is no guarantee of that. Not to mention, many people of all shapes and sizes have knee/ankle/hip pain (even thin people!). As we age, we tend to lose cartilage, and this often leads to joint pain. Sorry folks, but getting old is unavoidable! There are many ways to help joint pain that don’t involve weight loss (such as quad strengthening exercises for knee issues, medicine, wearable braces). And finally, even if someone were to lose weight to help their knee/ankle/hip pain, it is still highly unlikely they will be able to keep off that weight for any significant period of time.

Ways that I choose to respond to comments like these:

“You know, there are plenty of other strategies to use that could help your ankle pain. I would recommend talking with your doctor.”

“When I had knee pain, I started seeing a physical therapist who gave me a bunch of exercises to try to strengthen my quads – would you like his/her contact info?”

“While weight loss might initially help, it’s nearly impossible to keep off the weight, and it is likely that you will end up gaining more weight in the long run. Maybe you could find some other strategies to deal with the pain?”

At the end of the day, I really do understand why so many of these women make comments like the ones I shared above. And I also know that these comments are not just limited to the suburban female tennis playing community. We as a society have been brainwashed by the media, our doctors, our family and friends to think that it is right and normal to comment on other people’s bodies, to believe that what we choose to eat (or not eat) makes us virtuous or sinful, and to view weight loss as something that is easily achieved and maintained (all of these things being plainly false).  I just wish that we could change the conversation to one about things that really matter, like the state of the world, what we are passionate about, how our families are doing, etc.  Focusing on our bodies and what we put in them is terribly myopic. How much we could achieve if we just changed our focus.

The Struggle Is Real

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The following is a guest column by one of Joanne’s patients, Ashley, a 28-year-old female. We sincerely thank her for sharing her story.

Processed foods.  Whole foods.  Organic.  GMOs.  Good Foods.  Bad foods.

When did all of these labels become so powerful? When did we stop listening to what our bodies wanted to eat, rather than what the media deemed appropriate? If you are a person living in this country, my guess is that your food intuition got drowned out somewhere in your childhood/adolescent years. For many, once we gained the wherewithal to understand the outside world and the messages being thrown at us via TV, radio, internet, we were no longer allowed to listen to our bodies and were told the “right” and “wrong” ways to eat. Or maybe you are one of the rare people that maintains a healthy, nonjudgmental relationship with food. If so, please don’t change your ways; you are unique and courageous.

Let me start by saying that I have been in recovery from a restrictive eating disorder for about three years. At the height of my eating disorder, I felt as though I could not escape the judgmental voices in my head that were only amplified by the outside messages I was receiving. I have never been considered an overweight child or adult, but at a young age, I became hyperaware of my food habits and developed an overwhelming fear of being fat. Growing up in an affluent town, where the pressure to succeed in every way, shape, and form became the standard, maintaining a “thin” ideal was the only way I felt I could succeed, as I did not believe I was successful enough in my studies at school. I was very studious and maintained As and Bs, but this was not comparable to the others around me in high-level AP courses with perfect scores. With this frame of mind, I turned to food restriction in the hope that if I couldn’t be the smartest, I would strive for the “perfect” body instead – whatever that even means.

I later learned that food would become a perceived source of control for when anxiety took hold in my life. Generalized anxiety, with a bit of obsessive compulsive behavior, is a genetic component of my brain chemistry that I inherited; it is a feature I share with others in my family. This seems to be a common theme amongst those with eating disorders, and thus I am not unique in this. My life became consumed with thoughts of food, body image, and the fear of becoming fat. I never thought I was dieting, just “eating healthy.” Striving to increase fruit and vegetable intake, and getting physical activity, in and of itself is a great thing. However, it is commonly a gateway mindset to disordered eating. What most people don’t understand is that an eating disorder is not something that is chosen or easily reversed. A lot of people have said to me “just eat,” or “you have nothing to worry about; you’ve never been overweight.” Trust me, I would not choose a life full of counting calories and innate voices telling me that if I maintain my thinness, I am a better, more beautiful person. That is an insurmountable amount of pressure to be put under, so no, I did not choose to think and act this way. Of course, an eating disorder, while potentially deadly in its own right, is not necessarily a terminal disease, and for that I am very grateful, but that does not mean my story is any less important or challenging. It is a taboo social/mental health issue that we don’t often discuss (until most recently), but I would like to put an end to that. Many of us suffer in silence with voices telling us that we are not thin enough, or that if we put on weight, we will not be loved. I myself did not have the discussion with many of my closest friends until a year or more into recovery.

I can tell you that although I have come a remarkably long way in my journey to recovery, these voices never go away; they only get quieter. I have come to terms with the fact that this may be my own destiny, but that doesn’t necessarily mean food has to run my life in a negative fashion. It has been embedded into our brains as a society that there is a certain way to eat, and not to eat. For some reason, food has gained a moral power, and we are judged on character by what and how much we eat on any given day. For those of us who have struggled with any form of eating disorder, it feels nearly impossible to ignore the flood of messages we receive on an hourly basis regarding food choices. For some, it may be easier to block these harmful messages out, and for that, I am envious.

By nature, I am an easy target for the influence of what I refer to as “Ed” (as in Eating Disorder), the alter ego voice that reinforces negative and irrational food thoughts and behaviors. I was an insecure child growing up in a high-pressure minicosm within a larger society that places increasing value on the “thin ideal.” Trying to navigate the steps to recovery has felt impossible at times in the modern-day era, where food and body size remains a constant topic of conversation. This hyperawareness of food is a fairly novel phenomenon. The seemingly harmless recipe blogs found on Pinterest, fitness blogs, and health research articles have grown in numbers, highlighting the fact that food obsession has become the norm. There have been periods in recovery where I had to deactivate my Facebook account and/or unfollow certain websites in order to regain my sanity and focus on what works for MY body and holistic self. The number of conflicting (and often untrue) facts and opinions on the “best,” “healthiest,” “clean” diets, available at our fingertips is more harmful to achieving a “normal” food mentality than we realize. Even something as seemingly innocent as family, coworkers, and friends asking what I was having for lunch or dinner, or what was in the lunch I brought to work. The analysis and chatter regarding food trends and health is inescapable, and when I took a step back and became aware of it, I recognized my OWN disordered comments with others. I became more sensitive to asking others about their food habits, or how I complimented them, such as the common, well-meaning “Wow, have you lost weight? You look great!” The number of disordered messages that this single statement holds is often overlooked, as weight loss is praised and often equated with beauty.

A very tricky component of my recovery process is that I enjoy cooking (and have to say I am quite decent at it). I often justified cooking my own meals because it was cheaper and “healthier.” Now while that is certainly true, I now realize that measuring and calorie counting every morsel of every meal provided me with an immense feeling of control. I continued with these obsessive thoughts and behaviors for over 3 years, and only about a month ago did I literally throw out any form of measuring cup or spoon. Over the past year, I began forcing myself to eat out once a week or more, where I couldn’t count calories or micromanage the ingredients in whatever I ordered. What I have learned in regards to this is that control feels safe, but rebellion is uncomfortable, and progress often does not occur without discomfort.

In my recovery process, the practice of “intuitive eating” has truly given me hope. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this style of eating, it is basically a practice of getting in touch with your body’s needs, wants, cravings, and satiety. Instead of “how many calories are in this sandwich?” or “how many calories have I eaten today?” the focus shifts to “what is my body in the mood for, and how can I create that? What type and quantity of food is going to make me feel nourished and energetic?” I have to say that honoring my hunger intuitively has been one of the most difficult challenges throughout the recovery process, but without a doubt, the most rewarding and satisfying. Eating without internal judgment? I have never known what that feels like or what it truly means. I may never fully recover from my eating disorder and have come to terms with that idea. However, I continue to learn about my body and coping skills in ways that I never thought possible. I will continue to have great days and very anxious days, but overall, I can say with confidence that life is truly brighter when food freedom feels just within my grasp.

“If you’re gay, don’t come home.”

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Joanne and I overhear so much nutrition-related garbage at our health club that I have considered creating a new blog category to chronicle it all, the working title of which is “Shit We Overhear at the Gym.” Harsh, but to the point.

Similarly candid and blunt was my experience at the gym this morning, where the topic of conversation was understandably a departure from the typical diet talk, body shaming, and nutrition myths, and instead focused on the presidential election results.

“My husband told me, ‘Anybody but her [Hillary Clinton]’, but I am really scared, and as a woman I feel so disrespected,” said the woman on the cable machine. Shortly thereafter, I ran into a friend of mine who fought back tears as she talked about what Trump’s election means for her 18-year-old daughter who now fears for her present and future.

Once I finished my workout, I headed downstairs to the men’s locker room where the guys were also discussing the election, but instead of crying they were laughing, making a joke of the whole thing. The sample size is small, granted, but the stark contrast between the male and female reactions illustrates the difference between the privileged and the vulnerable.

A friend of mine, someone I have known for close to 30 years, is the only open Trump supporter in my social circle. Once his candidate was declared the victor, he took to Facebook and gloated. After considering whether or not to respond, I decided to reach out to him in a way that I thought might help him to understand what this election result really means for our country.

“When we were teenagers,” I wrote, “your father reportedly said to you, ‘If you’re gay, don’t come home.’ Fortunately, you self-identified as heterosexual, but the threat of not being accepted and welcome in your own home shook you enough that you talked with me about it. A Trump presidency makes America a less welcoming and more dangerous place for Muslims, Jews, Mexicans, women, blacks, gays, and other at-risk groups. The outrage and fear we are witnessing regarding Trump’s election is not about political parties, a change in direction, or disagreement over policies; rather, it is about millions of people with whom you and I share this country waking up today worried for their safety and freedom.

“For your sake, I am glad the crosshairs are not on you, at least not yet. Hopefully neither one of your sons is a closeted homosexual or self-identifies as a woman but is too scared to say so. For the rest of us, whether we are members of one of Trump’s targeted groups or we simply care about the people who are, his election is an ominous reminder that hate and scapegoating are alive and well in America and that history can certainly repeat itself.”

Hate is nothing new and Joanne and I have received a small taste of it. Because we advocate for size acceptance, we are occasionally bullied by online trolls who disagree with our stance that everybody, regardless of their size, is entitled to respect and equal treatment. The flack that we catch is nothing; for some of our colleagues, daily death threats are a way of life.

What is new though is the legitimacy that Trump has given to hate. Hiding behind an anonymous Twitter handle or a white sheet was one thing, but suddenly we had a presidential candidate repeatedly broadcasting his racism, misogyny, and bigotry out in the open on international television, and instead of shutting him down, we elected him. No wonder the women in the fitness center cried while the guys downstairs laughed.

As paradoxical as it may sound, intolerance of intolerance is an important stance for the safety of our community. Employees who spout hate speech at work are likely to be disciplined or fired, our legal system has hate crime laws that extend beyond whatever act is committed, and Germany banned the swastika after the fall of the Nazi regime, just to name a few examples. Regarding the latter, I reminded my friend how things worked out for that country and its people when a man rose to power on the platform that minorities were to blame for the nation’s poor economy and lack of prosperity.

We, as Americans, should be ashamed of ourselves. All of the men and women who have given their lives, either literally or figuratively, in military conflicts and civil actions over the past 240 years in pursuit of freedom and equality, and now a good portion of our citizens are eagerly trying to flush it down the toilet. We are a threat to ourselves and the world. America is an international embarrassment.

Joanne and I both want to leave. She says Toronto, I say Canada is too close for comfort and have my sights set on New Zealand. In reality though, running from the problem is no solution and we are not going anywhere. Every generation faces its struggles with hate, but the overall trend moves towards acceptance and inclusion because ordinary people hold their ground, stand up, and demand it.

Gentlemen, the Ladies Do Not Hold a Monopoly on Weight Obsession

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Gentlemen, the ladies do not hold a monopoly on weight obsession. Us guys engage in diet talk and body shaming, too. You know that, right? Maybe not, actually, as such talk is so casual and commonplace that you might not even be aware (consciously, anyway) of its pervasiveness. Consider the interaction I had yesterday evening at the gym with a male acquaintance we will call “Brad,” whom I had not seen in a long while.

Brad walked past me as I was warming up on the Arc Trainer prior to a tennis match. He had just finished a spin class and stopped to say hello. Brad and I first met 16 years ago while taking a core-strengthening class together, but the only place I had seen him in recent years was when we occasionally bumped into each other at the local pub where he eats dinner every Friday.

“You’re in nutrition. What do you order when you go there?” Brad asked with a smirk. Although he did not specifically say so, I knew exactly what he was getting at: He wanted to know if I follow a strict diet or eat freely like a perceived hypocrite, hence the mention of my profession.

Pausing, I considered the various replies at my disposal. On one hand, this was an opportunity to reeducate Brad regarding both the nature of my work and the problems with a good/bad food dichotomy. On the other hand, this was also my free time, and really I just wanted a few minutes to myself to get loose before heading out to the court, not an obligation to broach complex topics when I had neither the time nor inclination to do them justice.

“I order what I want,” I finally told him. “I order what feels like the best choice for my body at the time,” and specifically cited the pizza and nachos, which are my salty favorites to replenish the sodium I lose during long runs. (Note: By no means am I implying that one needs to exercise in order to “earn” these menu items or any other food.)

Then I asked him if he has seen our mutual friend (Let’s call him “Gary.”) who resumed exercising earlier this year after a long absence. “He’s down 40 or 50 pounds,” Brad responded, “He looks great!” Again, I paused and internally debated my next move. At the very least, I knew there was no way I would echo Brad’s praise for weight loss, as I know the damage such extolment causes, especially without fully knowing how or why someone lost weight.

“Weight loss aside, I’m just glad he is taking the time to care for himself again,” I told Brad. Like me, Gary was an avid exerciser, which is how he and I met at the gym soon after I graduated from college, but the burden of his caretaking duties increased as the health of his parents deteriorated and he no longer felt up to working out. His mother and father subsequently passed away in quick succession, which left Gary to settle their estate and figure out what to do with his own life. After everything Gary had been through, I was just happy to see him caring for himself again and returning to the activities he enjoys, including exercise, regardless of his weight.

Unfortunately, Brad did not seem to follow the gist of my sentiments and continued talking about Gary’s weight loss, adding that he has seen Gary do this at least a few times before. By “this,” Brad was referencing Gary’s history of weight cycling: alternating periods of weight loss and subsequent regain. “But not like you have to worry about that yourself,” Brad offered, looking down at my abdomen. “You’re always in great shape.”

Great shape? One of the problems with judging people for their exteriors is that we probably have no idea about the makeup of their interiors, both metaphorically and literally. Too taken aback by Brad’s comment to say anything out loud, I silently reflected upon everything I have been through over the last three years and specifically turned my thoughts to the titanium screws and rods, artifacts from my third back surgery, buried deep inside the midsection of which Brad is apparently so envious.

As is the case for everybody, my size and shape are influenced by many factors, the most significant of which are out of my hands. Among those that are at least somewhat in my control though is my history of never having tried to lose weight, which would have put me on a path most likely to end at, ironically enough, weight gain. In that sense, part of the reason I do not have a “weight problem” is because I never viewed my weight as a problem.

Think about the diet talk and various mentions of body shape and weight that Brad crammed into a casual conversation that lasted just a few minutes. Comments and discussions along these lines are so prevalent that I overhear men talking this way at the health club on a daily basis. Another recent incident comes to mind in which some of my fellow tennis players – adults, no less – bullied another player for the size of his stomach.

The problems with such talk are numerous, including: the reinforcement of the ridiculous, offensive, and dangerous notion that people of certain sizes and weights are more deserving of respect than others; the exacerbation of bullying and unequal treatment that spills well beyond health clubs and into our homes, businesses, classrooms, government initiatives, and doctor’s offices; and the pressure to pursue weight-loss endeavors that most often result in weight gain and worsened health.

Guys, this kind of talk has to stop, and the first steps toward putting it to rest are acknowledging its existence and realizing the harm we are doing to each other through our words.

He Said, She Said: Sports and Nutrition

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He Said

Leading up to this month’s Newport Marathon, I solicited advice from colleagues around the world as well as fellow marathoners regarding fueling strategies that might help me to avoid the nausea that plagued me in earlier endurance events.

The suggestions I received were all over the place: Eat boiled potatoes with salt late in the race. Pack maple syrup in a fanny pack and drink it periodically along the course. Eat bananas, orange wedges, gummy bears, white bread, salt bagels, or jelly beans. Drink Gatorade, Pedialyte, flat beer, coconut water, Nuun, Skratch Labs, or mix the latter two together.

As I sifted through the various suggestions, I realized I was looking at a great example of the intersection between the hard science of nutrition and intuitive eating. During endurance events, we need to replenish fluids, carbohydrates, and electrolytes, but how we do that must be individualized based on what works for each one of us; thus we need the gamut of ideas. How we determine what works best for us is by trying various approaches based upon sound nutrition guidance and personal history, paying attention to how each trial makes us feel, and basing new iterations largely on firsthand experience.

Sometimes we, as patients, have a tendency to defer entirely to our practitioners. We see comfort in directives. “Just tell me what to eat,” a patient may say. In reality, a collaborative approach tends to be much more effective in part because determining the best path involves the patient’s input and experiences. Hydrating with a particular beverage may seem great on paper, for example, but if it disagrees with the patient’s system, then we need to form a different strategy.

Patient input is one of the most significant differences between textbook nutrition and nutrition in real life, which is why Joanne and I strive to create an atmosphere of collaboration and equality at our practice. Only our patients know how various foods make them feel, so we focus on building intuitive eating skills in part so they are able to recognize and communicate these experiences.

Leading up to the marathon, I treated every athletic endeavor as an opportunity to experiment and gather data regarding how various foods and fluids made me feel. One of the drinks I tried during a tennis practice failed to hit the spot whatsoever, but better to find that out during a casual hitting session than during an important training run or the marathon itself. Another beverage worked really well once I was actually running but made me jittery beforehand. Some foods gave me cramps and made me feel sluggish whereas others settled better than I expected. All of these outcomes, even if they were not what I had hoped, represented important data.

As a result of my experiments, I knew exactly what I was going to eat and drink come race day. Breakfast consisted of white toast with peanut butter, honey, and sliced banana with orange juice and Nuun Active. Between breakfast and the start of the race, I drank Gatorade and water until a half hour before the start, at which time I downed more Nuun Active. During the race itself, I consumed Gatorade and bananas from the aid stations as well as Nuun Energy and salted pretzels that I brought with me. Worked like a charm.

If your takeaway from this column is that you should adopt my own specific food and hydration plan during your own athletic events, then unfortunately you have missed the point: the importance of individuality. As I downed the last of my Nuun Active before the start, my friend with whom I ran the race strapped small vials of maple syrup to her waist, a fueling technique that she knew from experience would work for her. If she and I had swapped strategies, both of us would probably have felt awful. We are all different, so figuring out what works best for you is a process that involves both guidance from a professional as well as your own input based on firsthand experiences.

 

She Said

From a young age, I participated in a variety of team sports, including soccer, softball, and volleyball. While I truly loved playing these sports, my family was a tennis family, in that tennis was a sport that we all learned to play as children and enjoyed playing together. As I got older, I played tennis less and less, usually just hitting the ball around for fun with my family on vacations or with Jonah on a public court during the summer. But about 3 years ago, I decided to get back into the sport that I had enjoyed so much in my youth, so I joined several local women’s tennis teams.

While my overall experience on these teams has been overwhelmingly positive, whenever the topic of food or weight comes up, I have noticed some troubling trends. Whether it is one of my teammates or one of our opponents, a number of these women exhibit quite disordered ideas about food and weight.

When I was new to one of my teams, I remember one of my teammates asking me what I do for a living. After I told her that I work primarily with individuals struggling with eating disorders (EDs), she jokingly commented, “Oh, I so wish I had an eating disorder! I just can’t seem to lose these pesky 10 pounds!” I was very quick to correct her and explain how dangerous and life-threatening EDs are and that they are not simply something that someone can choose to engage in or not to lose a few pounds.

In addition to misunderstanding EDs and the seriousness of these disorders, many of the tennis women I encounter seem to struggle with diet mentality. A couple of years ago, I remember one of my tennis friends casually mentioning that one of the primary reasons she plays so much tennis is that it allows her to eat whatever she wants. In fact, I have heard this sentiment from other tennis peers, implying that they view tennis first and foremost as a way to burn calories.

At nearly all of my tennis matches, the home team provides food for the visitors and themselves. Depending on the time of the matches, the foods offered can range from simple snacks to pretty substantial lunches. Of course, with all of this food come a lot of shame, guilt, and judgments. I overheard one group of ladies on an opposing team debating whether they would have one of the cookies offered, with one of them declaring that she does not allow herself any “white carbs.” Other times I have seen women eating only salad or protein, as they are “trying to be good.”

Diets are a hot topic at many of my matches and practices. From Paleo to Whole 30 to Shakeology, a great number of the tennis women engage in restrictive eating in one form or another. One of my tennis friends started a cleanse not too long ago because she felt like she really needed to “detox” her liver and other organs. Another friend has been eschewing carbohydrates during the week and only indulging in them on her “cheat days.” As one might imagine, I try not to engage in any diet conversations as they can become quite charged. But when I mention what I do for a living, it seems like many of these women are only too happy to talk to me about food and nutrition.

I really don’t blame these tennis ladies for their disordered ideas about food, nutrition, and weight – they are subject to the numerous fear-mongering messages we all receive from our doctors, from the media, and from our friends and family. Talking about one’s diet or weight has become so commonplace that the idea of not talking about it seems strange somehow. But just think about all of the other things we could discuss! All of the ideas and stories we could share with each other! Wouldn’t that be more fun than talking about how to lose those pesky 10 pounds?

At the end of the day, I try to pick my battles. If someone asks me about my thoughts on dieting or certain foods, I will oblige. I try to be gentle with them around my strong anti-diet philosophy as it can be quite surprising and confusing for many people. When it comes to EDs, I do my best to educate those who ask about them. So far, many of my teammates have expressed interest in the idea of intuitive eating and the non-diet approach, so I have tried to point them in the right direction by recommending books and other resources. If I can somehow help even one of them to ditch the diets and begin to appreciate their body for what it can do (e.g., play tennis!), then I will feel like I have made a difference.

He Said, She Said: Obesity Awareness Month

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He Said

The concept of National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month is flawed in several ways, many of which Joanne covers in her She Said passage. The most glaring issue, in my opinion, is that by promoting the use of weight as a proxy for health, the government is paradoxically distracting from matters of actual health.

Human beings can be healthy at a variety of weights, which is why we cannot draw accurate conclusions about someone’s health or behaviors based solely on their size. Thin folks can have plenty of medical woes. A couple of years ago, I wrote about a slender friend of mine who was diabetic, suffered a heart attack, and ultimately died of cancer. Someone might be thin due to food insecurity, a medical condition, psychological disturbances, eating disorders or disordered eating, or overexercise, just to name a few of the health-threatening issues that might lead to lowered body weight.

With a focus on obesity, not only do we miss an opportunity to identify and assist people at risk for or suffering from these problems, but we actually push them in the direction of trouble. For example, I have recently seen an increase in pediatric patients, including males, with eating disorders or disordered eating that reportedly stemmed from a fear of getting fat brought on by discussions at school or the doctor’s office.

One of my teenage patients recently told me how his pediatrician praised him for having lost weight from one annual checkup to the next after having chastised him the year before, but what his doctor did not know was that my patient had overexercised and restricted his food intake leading up to the appointment for fear that his doctor would again be mad at him if he had not lost weight. My patient’s behaviors brought him further away from health, not towards it, and the poor communication between him and his doctor puts him at risk for improper care in the future. Furthermore, food restriction elevates his risk for binge eating disorder and, ironically, ultimate weight gain.

Trust me, children who are obese already know it. They hear about it on the playground, in gym class, on television, online, maybe in the pediatrician’s office, and from other sources that tell them something is wrong with their bodies and it is their fault. National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month calls even more attention to them and their bodies, thereby exacerbating stigmatization and bullying.

The concept of National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month may be well intentioned, but its fallout is the exact opposite of the desired effect. If we want to improve the actual health of our children, better to promote size diversity and the importance of healthy behaviors, such as fun and appropriate physical activity, for everybody.

 

She Said

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), September is National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month. Per the HHS website, “one in 3 children in the United States are overweight and obese,” putting kids at risk for developing health problems such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. The website goes on to say that childhood obesity is preventable, as “communities, health professionals, and families can work together to create opportunities for kids to eat healthier and get more active.” Some of the strategies that the HHS recommends are nutrition based, such as “keeping fresh fruit within reach” and providing healthier food options at school, and other strategies are focused on activity levels, such as encouraging families to go on an after-dinner walk and incorporating daily physical activity at school.

While I actually applaud the strategies put forth by the HHS to improve kids’ health, I am saddened to see the focus be on body size. Thanks to Michelle Obama, childhood obesity is at the forefront of the American consciousness. Kids are being weighed and measured at school and then later sent home with a health report card telling them whether they are at a “healthy” body mass index (BMI) or are in the “overweight” or “obese” categories. Even though the medical community as a whole willingly acknowledges that the BMI is woefully flawed as an indicator of health status, it still condones its use in determining the health of our kids. Time and time again, studies have shown that behaviors rather than weight are a better determinant of health, but unfortunately, this is not being reflected in current policy.

My greatest concern is the effect that focusing on childhood obesity could be setting up kids to develop eating disorders (EDs). I cannot tell you how many preteens who have stepped into my office had been sent home with their BMI report card and then developed either extremely disordered eating or an actual diagnosable ED. What often happens is that the parents become alarmed at their child’s negative BMI report and will start to impose harsh diet restrictions and exercise ultimatums. I had one patient whose father promised her and her sister iPads if they both lost weight. Not only would he limit their access to “junk” food, he would make them run laps around their neighborhood after dinner every night. As a result of this, the patient developed a very disordered relationship with food and her body. This story is not unique, unfortunately. I have heard it too many times to count.

So, I have a few issues with the HHS’s focus on obesity. First of all, I don’t believe that we should have schools be weighing and measuring kids and sending them home with a BMI report card. Instead, the child’s pediatrician and parents should be the gatekeepers of the child’s health. Every child has their own unique growth charts – some trend on the higher end of weight for height, while others trend on the lower end of the chart. In other words, some kids are just meant to be in bigger bodies, while others are meant to be in smaller bodies. These body sizes do not tell us anything about the child’s health unless there are major changes in either direction. For instance, one would expect a child trending on the 85th percentile to stay at that percentile. If there was a sharp drop to the 50th percentile, that would be cause for concern. Similarly, if a child was trending on the 50th percentile and then jumped up to the 90th percentile, that should also be looked at. One body type is not inherently healthier than the other – every body is unique.

In addition, I think it is so important to not speak negatively about a child’s weight. Kids are like sponges, and they pick up on everything. Talking with one’s child about how their body works and teaching them how to take care of it is one thing, but telling a child that they are too big and need to lose weight is extremely damaging and can set the child up for years of negative body image and a life of disordered eating. Many EDs start when a well-meaning parent tries to teach their child to diet and use exercise to burn calories. In fact, there are a number of studies that show that when children are put on restricted diets, they will often end up being heavier adults.

Also, I think that if a parent has concerns about his or her child’s weight, they should talk with their child’s pediatrician separately (i.e., not with the child in the room). Instead of telling the parent that their child simply needs to lose weight, it would be wonderful if pediatricians did not just make an assumption based solely on the child’s weight that the child is engaging in unhealthy behaviors. If it is determined that the child is in fact not practicing healthy lifestyle behaviors, it would be best if the doctor just focused on helping the child develop these healthy habits (perhaps by referring them to a registered dietitian or other health care provider) and measure the child’s progress by their weight.

Given that, I don’t think that National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month is helpful at all in helping our kids lead healthier lives. By teaching them that weight is synonymous with health, we are doing them a major disservice. Perhaps September could instead be called National Healthy Habits Awareness Month? Just a thought.