If you’ve ever read anything I’ve written or heard me speak, you’ve noticed how I emphasize over & over the importance of breaking the “diet mentality”. Besides the slew of physical problems that are created by a diet mentality, there are mental ones that come along for the ride as well.
The problems often manifest in Disordered Eating Patterns (DEP). Disordered Eating Patterns are complicated, multi-faceted behaviors. DEP comes from not only years of yo-yo dieting, but can also stem from social, familial & genetic issues.
Here’s what Disordered Eating Patterns actually are:
· Any type of eating that regularly doesn’t match physiological needs – This could mean eating too little or too much on a consistent basis.
· Eating behaviors that interfere with & harm proper physical, psychological & interpersonal functioning – These are behaviors that alienate & isolate people from their deeper selves, other people & the world around them.
· A systematic & longstanding preoccupation with food (whether eating or not eating) – This is pretty self-explanatory & goes back to “diet rules” but is made more complex by an extreme focus on those rules.
· Eating behaviors that both relieve distress & cause distress – This is eating as a method of self-soothing, distraction from situations, avoiding experiences, helping to manage feelings, or as a coping mechanism to a problem. This way of eating comes in to play in order to relieve distress but then causes distress such as guilt, shame, weight gain, etc.
Disordered Eating Patterns are a full body, full person, full life experience that has multiple dimensions. It involves thoughts, beliefs, feelings, physical sensations & personal narratives about the “story” of who we are & how the world around us works.
All of these have reason, function & purpose. It’s as though Disordered Eating Patterns have a job to do in our life.
Most importantly, Disordered Eating Patterns are a coping mechanism & a seeming solution to another problem, however ludicrous it may be.
Just like other addictions, Disordered Eating Patterns are never the original problem. There is always an underlying issue that leads us to DEP. Disordered Eating Patterns are simply a distress signal that something deeper is wrong.
Simply put, if you ever feel guilt, shame or an obsessive need for control surrounding food choices, there is likely some form of Disordered Eating in your life.
People with a Disordered Eating Pattern mindset often say things like, “I shouldn’t eat that” or “I can’t have that.” They also typically struggle with black & white rules surrounding food. There is no room for error or “gray areas” in their rules.
Other things people with DEP experience are periods of compensation & bargaining with themselves. This is an episode where they feel like they’ve made “bad” choices, so they compensate with purging, over-exercising & fasting (not in a healthy way). Restricting food, finding another, seemingly better “plan” & cleansing or detoxing are other telltale signs that a person is struggling with Disordered Eating Patterns in their life.
What can you do about Disordered Eating Patterns? I’d like for us to pull that answer from a passage where Paul talks about how we as believers have the ability to do anything we want to do.
“I have the right to do anything” – you say, but not everything is beneficial.
“I have the right to do anything” – you say, but not everything is constructive.
1 Corinthians 10:23
This passage tells us that you can do whatever you want to do, but beware: all the things your flesh wants you to do aren’t beneficial for you. Not everything that you think will bring you happiness is actually going be constructive for building you up.
Any Disordered Eating Patterns that might surface in your life come from somewhere in your heart that is searching for what you think will bring happiness, freedom or abundance. But what Paul tells us later in that same chapter is that everything we do should be for the glory of God (vs. 31).
How does that work into our Disordered Eating Patterns?
It stops us from using food as a comfort for painful feelings by driving us to God with our wounds. It keeps us from over-indulging in food because we know in Jesus, we always have enough. It stops our extreme dieting by reassuring us that our worth & value are not found in how much we weigh or the size of our clothes.
Knowing we have the right to do whatever we want & yet choosing to do what glorifies God (self-control in the Spirit) is the path out of Disordered Eating Patterns.
Do you think you might have Disordered Eating Patterns? CONTACT ME & let me help you find out how to break them through God’s Un-diet. A way of life that brings sustainable weight management through grace, not guilt.