This is a challenging time for so many people in so many ways, but I want to send some extra love to people who are dealing with eating disorders. Many of us have a complicated relationship with food, even at the best of times, and the current situation can be challenging to navigate.
You might not have the support you need—you can’t go to support groups that help you focus on physical health, and mental well-being, and body image. People who rely on eating certain foods so as not to trigger feelings that may lead to binging, purging, and other disordered eating behaviours may not have access to the things they need. Anyone who is responsibly practicing self-isolation is at home all day and, even if you’re able to work from home, you’re surrounded by food in a way that you probably aren’t in your regular work environment. It might be less, it might be more, but the point is that it’s different and outside of routine. Routine is important to many of us who have experienced disordered eating patterns.
A lot of articles and social media posts are providing advice and humour about not getting fat/getting fat, cutting portion sizes, etc. while we’re in our homes and less active than we normally would be, and I get that the people who post them often have good intentions, but sometimes they feed into fat phobia and generate conflicting emotions.
I’m not here to tell you what your portion sizes should be, or how many calories to consume, or provide any kind of dietary advice. I do want to remind you that this is a considerably stressful time and that it’s a normal biological function to crave more calories with higher fat and sugar content during tough times. It’s an evolutionary survival mechanism and, while it’s not quite so useful given that many of us have easy access to food at all hours of the day, it remains one of the ways that your body is trying to take care of itself. As your cortisol levels increase in times of stress, so does ghrelin, a hormone responsible for sending hunger cues to your brain. Some people will eat more food during this time and some will eat less. The need for control will be so great right now that they may restrict their food consumption in an attempt to gain some control over something in an otherwise uncertain situation.
Whatever your body is telling you, even if you are feeling betrayed by your body, remind yourself that your reactions are actually your body trying to take care of you. You are looking for nourishment to get through this. You are looking for control to get through this. Your body is trying to get you through this in the ways that it currently knows how to. The important part is that you get through this.
Again, I’m not telling you to eat, or not eat, or what to eat, or how much to eat. I’m trying to say, please, be kind to yourself. Be gentle and patient. If your body is in panic mode, you might be making choices that you wouldn’t make under different circumstances and that’s totally understandable. Eating or not eating a certain type or amount of food, or choosing one food over another, is not a failure or a success. Your value as a person exists completely outside of that. The old saying got things so very wrong. You are not what you eat, or when you eat, or how you eat, or why you eat. You are so much more important than that.