Order out of Disorder

Surely you have heard of eating disorders. There are specials and documentaries illustrating eating disorders like anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and compulsive overeating. All these eating disorders have the hallmark of misusing food, in the extreme, to resolve emotional problems.
A step before these diseases is disordered eating. The term disordered eating covers a wide range of irregular eating behaviors that may not be full blown “eating disorders” but effect how an individual eats.

Disordered eating can be caused by your attitudes about food, weight and body size and can lead to eating, and sometimes exercise, habits that jeopardize your health, happiness and safety. A few habits of those individuals with disordered eating include, skipping meals, weighing yourself daily, often overeating to the point of discomfort, eating when not hungry or eating when you are not even aware of what you are doing. There is a fine line between an eating disorder and disordered eating; in both, the eater is using food to manage emotions or stress. Food or control over food serves as a coping mechanism.

Tips to alleviate disordered eating:

1. Stop viewing food as the enemy or the hero. Food is not alive and will not hurt or help you without your involvement.

2. Stop dieting. Rules around food have the potential to turn forbidden foods into the Holy Grail potentially setting you up to binge on the arbitrarily assigned forbidden foods.

3. Identify the habits you are practicing. Are you eating more late at night? Are you skipping meals to trim calories? Are you doing several things that significantly affect how many calories you take in? When you are practicing this behavior take note of what is going on. What prompted this behavior? How do you feel afterward?

4. Once you have identified your behavior(s) and its cues try to strategize what you would do next time to avoid or lessen this harmful behavior. Try to think of these skills when you are not under stress or starting to feel the beginning of an over or under eating event. You are your own expert so developing your own coping skills, tailored to how you think, is essential.

5. Seek help. There are many health professionals who can help you with disordered eating. Ask your primary health care physician for a referral to someone she trusts. This person may be a mental health professional or a dietitian, either way it is important to realize that you may not be able to stop the unhealthful food cycle alone.