The Impact of Messages Surrounding Obesity on Eating Disorder Treatment
Posted by Mark Warren on Fri, Apr 16, 2010 @ 12:36 PM
By Dr. Lucene Wisniewski and Dr. Mark Warren
Recently, there has been tremendous attention being paid to obesity throughout our culture. From
Michelle Obama, to the recent articles in
The Plain Dealer, to medical experts, to television shows, we are hearing with great frequency about obesity. This focus on obesity can create unique problems for individuals who suffer from eating disorders.
One of the challenges of working in the field of eating disorders is the reality that for most people in America the primary concern is losing weight, not gaining weight or stopping restriction and over-exercise. For our clients who may be having life threatening weight-loss behaviors, the focus on obesity in our culture may be confusing at a minimum and at its worst may present a risk to their well being.
We believe that messages around obesity may be potentially detrimental to our clients for several reasons:
- The culture implicitly suggests that weight loss in and of itself is a good thing regardless of why and how it is done.
- The method of losing weight, which may involve behaviors which are highly disordered (e.g. severe caloric restriction, and/or intense and compulsive exercise) is rarely questioned since the focus is on weight itself and not how it is lost.
- Messages regarding obesity and weight loss are often delivered by well meaning and sometimes uninformed individuals who fail to understand the impact of their words on the person who is hearing them.
If one is obese it is not helpful to be told “you should lose weight”. This is just about as useful as telling someone with anorexia, “you should gain weight”. What we are in need of is better information on how to talk to people about food and body issues, how to help people focus on health rather than on size and how to
counter the overwhelming negative messages that exist in our culture about our bodies. Most importantly, is the need to know how to help everyone, wherever they happen to be on the weight spectrum, to know how to take care of their bodies and to value themselves as a a unique individual, based on the things that are truly important.
Contributions by Sarah Emerman and Julie Norman