Eating Disorders Are Holistic By Nature
I recorded our first podcast of 2025 this week.
Normally we work in seasons but by the end of last year we were exhausted so we now have a new as and when approach.
It felt great to be back talking with yet another brilliant guest. Every now and then I had a rush of “this is going to help someone,” and if our content helps just one person then our job is worthwhile. Because they in turn will help someone else and someone else and so on.
We covered some ground.
I learnt some stuff particularly around eating disorder-speak. I haven’t used the term thin privilege before but I’m going to start because I would use the word privilege for issues around race or colour or social and economic standing.
Our language around eating disorders constantly evolves and changes but I have some resistance (I have been told that I’m all about resistance) as some of it I find repressive and reductive, meaning that it works against us and not for us.
My particular bug bear is the overused...eating disorders are mental health issues.
When someone uses the phrase mental health I immediately think:
A) Lazy and B) of that health as being only from the neck up.
Traditionally the mind (our mentality) lives in our head, doesn’t it?
I know that the mind cannot be exactly located in the brain (maybe the mind is the sheath within which we live) but I think we all think mental means head.
And this is where I run into problems regarding eating disorders because they are more than just existing in the mental realm. I believe they are more profound, etheric even.
So I looked up three definitions of mental health (you’re welcome) see below.
The Collins Dictionary says:
“The general condition of a person’s mind.”
But Google AI says:
“Mental health encompasses our emotional, psychological, and social well-being, influencing how we think, feel, and act, and impacting our ability to cope with stress, build relationships, and make choices.”
And The World Health Organization says:
“Mental health is a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to their community. It is an integral component of health and well-being that underpins our individual and collective abilities to make decisions, build relationships and shape the world we live in.”
Eating Disorders Are Holistic By Nature
What I’m trying to say is that eating disorders are holistic by nature. Our suffering happens within our mental, emotional, physical and spiritual realms. None of these are mutually exclusive. They are interdependent; we cannot have one without the other.
There’s something dismissive about the term mental health as if that’s all there is. Is this just me being picky and out of date? Am I missing the point?
Only one guest has ever come on the podcast and said that eating disorders break our spirit. I could’ve kissed her, except she was in Colorado and I was in the UK - thousands of miles apart. Broken spirit sings poetically.
Eating disorders are to do with our shadow selves, secrets, lies and the unknown. What lies beneath, and behind. Masks and things unsaid.
Just saying… !
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