This year in honor of #NEDAW, I’m hoping people will come to let go of some of their antiquated ideas about eating disorders.
Unfortunately, “awareness” campaigns, outdated Psychology 101 textbooks, and the media, have created a pervasive understanding of eating disorders as being caused by society’s “thin ideal” or fashion models. And I understand why— it’s an easy connection to make. But it’s also a profoundly dangerous one.
The truth is we now know with certainty that culture, disordered eating, and bad body image do not cause eating disorders. Rather, eating disorders are brain-based, biological illnesses.
Don’t get me wrong: culture, disordered eating, and bad body image can certainly trigger eating disorders— as can unintentional weight loss from the stomach flu— but only in a person with the appropriate predisposition.
One way to think about it is like this: We can all agree that flashing lights may cause a reaction in somebody with epilepsy. However, I think that relatively few would argue that the strobe light in their basement is going to actually GIVE them epilepsy.
The same goes for eating disorders. Someone who is predisposed towards an eating disorder may have a “reaction,” i.e. develop Anorexia, as a result of engaging in disordered eating. But just as most people can walk passed a flashing light without having a seizure, most women will experience disordered eating at some point in their lives without going on to develop Anorexia, Bulimia, or any other eating disorder.
Research has demonstrated that the brains of eating disordered individuals are actually fundamentally different from healthy controls on a neurobiological level. What’s more, studies have shown that eating disorders are 59-82% genetic.
Which means the amount you played with Barbie as a child or your ability to “love your body!” really has nothing to do with whether or not you will go on to develop this life-threatening illness.
The disease chooses the victim, not the other way around.
The longer we perpetuate the idea that eating disorder sufferers are people who were unduly swayed by society’s ‘thin ideal’ to take drastic measures to lose weight, the longer we’re going to have a society that shames, minimizes, and refuses to fund research for eating disorders.
So this week, instead of talking about Vogue, let’s start talking about treatment for this deadly illness.
Let’s start talking about research.
Let’s start talking about a cure.
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