Disordered Eating vs. Eating Disorders

As psychiatric diagnoses have seeped into the lay lexicon, the general understanding of the severity of these illnesses themselves become watered down. When people say they feel depressed instead of sad, manic instead of happy or OCDing instead of anxious, it’s unclear what being psychiatrically ill actually means.

Conflating daily life with mental illness is most evident when discussing eating disorders. Many people struggle with disordered eating. They fight with distorted body image and eat based on diets or fears about weight rather than based on hunger. They exercise out of guilt rather than to enjoy movement or to improve health.

And moreover, these people who engage in disordered behaviors often believe they have an eating disorder. Even though these thoughts and behaviors can be disruptive, disordered eating does not fundamentally impact people’s lives. They are still able to work, socialize and function within society even if they spend too much time thinking about food, exercise, body and weight.

People with eating disorders are not able to live a full life. And if they are able to live somewhat fully, they suffer the constant psychological and physical consequences of their illness. The eating disorder thoughts make it very difficult to focus on other parts of their life. They struggle so much to eat and to manage their body image thoughts that it impairs their ability to make plans and develop friendships or relationships.

The difference between symptoms and illness is the amount the symptoms affect one’s life. When life is disrupted and a person cannot live fully, disordered eating becomes an eating disorder.

The reason this is important is that people with eating disorders often feel misunderstood or feel their struggles are minimized when others purport to have an eating disorder. It makes truly sick people feel as if their illness is not severe. This misconception leads to worsening symptoms and relapse.

Although disordered eating can affect a person’s life, it’s crucial that the distinction between the two are clear for all people involved.

Exercise and Weight, Part II

I need to clarify that, overall, exercise is beneficial for one’s body and health. The human body is designed to work better with regular exercise in terms of managing cardiovascular health and well being. This fact is undeniable and important.

However, the other messages about exercise that have become pervasive and, for many, apparent facts that are more problematic and untrue.

The association of exercise and weight loss, equating exercise as a form of burning calories to be matched by food intake and the need for increased fitness and exercise as a sign of improvement of health all are either falsehoods or exaggerations not based on fact.

The food, diet and exercise industries benefit from making these statements appear true.

If exercise is associated with weight loss, the imperative and pressure to exercise falls on the individual. The pervasive guilt when people don’t exercise pushes them to sign up for classes, join gyms and participate in a part of life they may or may not want to but feel compelled to. But the purpose of this collective obsession is to maintain or lose weight when the overwhelming data proves otherwise.

If eating food can only be justified by exercise, people will need to rack up a certain amount of calories burned in order to feel able to eat their meals, even though the calories burned statistics on machines and various devices is not based on any biological science. Instead, people feel tethered to inaccuracies as the reason they can or cannot eat.

And with the constant personal urgency to be “healthy,” exercise is often the foundation of that philosophy. Yes moderate exercise is connected with improvement on health, but excessive exercise has no bearing on health. The connection between health and exercise is such a strong reality that people are shocked to know that only moderate exercise shows true health improvement.

These pressures around exercise, based on a series of inaccurate statements, drive a significant amount of behaviors and thought processes for many who don’t have eating disorders. The growing exercise industry benefits from an urgency people feel to exercise, and the diet and food industries also benefit from the growing obsession to seek improved health by focusing on these falsehoods. 

Without sufficient public health and medical establishment response, these falsehoods remain the only “truths” people know. Too many doctors have been brainwashed into believing the propaganda and public health campaigns are more focused on increased weight to realize the larger picture.

As long as our society is so obsessed with thinness, people are trapped in this conundrum. The real freedom is to see exercise as a part of life and to see food more clearly as a necessity to sustain life.

Exercise and Weight, Part I

The societal messages about exercise are incredibly confusing. As with nutrition, most doctors know little about the connection between exercise and health and rely on media misinformation rather than any true data. Minimally knowledgeable writers and a powerful exercise industry instead dominate our collective thoughts.

There is plenty of evidence that moderate exercise on a regular basis is better for overall cardiovascular health. Being completely sedentary worsens health and well-being.

Increased exercise or fitness does not correlate with commensurate improvement in health. It only confers improved athletic abilities.

However, the underlying message about exercise relates implicitly or explicitly to weight. No matter how people discuss exercise, they always imply that exercise is necessary to remain or get to a low weight. And by and large, these conversations lead to shame, guilt or conversely smugness.

The overall data is conclusive: exercise doesn’t lead to weight loss. For a sedentary person, exercise often leads to short-term amounts of weight loss that returns within six months. Exercise often leads to increased hunger to compensate for increased activity. Time and again, research proves that exercise does not change one’s weight.

This fact is irrefutable, yet it seems to shock anyone who hears it. Almost everyone told this information can’t believe it’s true. Instead, most people exercise out of guilt and shame and many people only feel able to eat if they compensate with regular exercise.

How has the falsehood around exercise and weight become so pervasive? What keeps people from learning the basic facts about exercise and the body’s response? I’ll talk more about it in the next post.