Cracking the Code: Understanding the Language of Disordered Eating

December 16th, 2009
By Deborah Klinger, MA, Eating & Food Issues Topic Expert Contributor

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Disordered eating is a metaphorical expression of an internal condition. Think about food: you may be a “foodie,” who appreciates well-prepared, high quality food and relishes a lengthy meal with good companionship and conversation. You may be more utilitarian, viewing food simply as something necessary to your health and wellbeing. Or perhaps you relish the sensory pleasures of warm, savory, fragrant, filling foods and aren’t interested in much fanfare around the eating of them. Your eating habits may reflect your values when it comes to the consumption of animals, of refined and processed foods, and/or of foods produced locally v. shipped from afar. Regardless of your personal preferences when it comes to food, a relaxed yet conscious relationship with food is healthy; a conflicted one is not.

My clients who struggle with food-related problems are not relaxed about food. For them, eating is fraught with guilt, shame and self-recrimination. The goal of eating is not to nourish one’s body, support one’s health, or strengthen connection to others by breaking bread with friends, but something else entirely. That “something else” operates according to the rules of disordered eating. These rules include being “good” with food: that is, eating only things that are low in fat, or carbohydrates, or calories (the rules vary from person to person). Disordered eaters fundamentally believe that eating “good” or “bad” foods, or “being good” or “being bad” with food, determines whether they are good or bad people.

Food is a fundamental survival need. When we are infants, one of the first ways we know we are loved and considered valuable enough to care for is that we get hungry, we squirm or whimper, and we’re picked up and put to the breast. We experience relief and contentment and know that we are loved and all is right with the world. Eating is inextricably entwined with being fed, nurtured, protected and loved.

This is true for everyone. But for those who are vulnerable to developing a disordered relationship with food, this fundamental experience of being fed and feeding can morph into something sinister: as life gets more complicated, if our caregivers are unable to meet other developmental needs adequately, we might remember on some primal level what being fed did for us. Food can become a substitute for and a symbol of what we really need. Thus, we may reach for food, or recoil from it, depending on our genetics, our inborn temperament, the dynamics in our families and the circumstances of our lives. We might infer that our needs don’t matter, that it is safer not to need, or selfish to need. In this case, we are likely to deny ourselves food we need. We may figure out that we get attention when we look pretty or get good grades or excel at athletics, and decide that our not-so-excellent qualities are signs of a flaw at the core of our being and that our acceptance by others depends on our hiding that that flaw, but our hidden side cries out for nurturance, driving a tremendous appetite—so we take in huge quantities of food, feel anxious, fearful, ashamed, and vomit it back up to come back to the “right” place: empty, pretty, thin, capable, nice. Or we may feel be driven by those unmet emotional and psychological needs to eat, eat, eat—but the pit is bottomless; there isn’t enough food on the planet, because the need isn’t physical—but not knowing this, we can only interpret our increasingly large bodies as evidence of our fundamental flaw.

Thus, in disordered eating-speak, for example the words, “I feel fat” really mean “I feel inadequate” “I believe I’m gross or unloveable” “I’m afraid people will be repelled by me and reject me” and similar sentiments. “I don’t need this _______[food item]” means “I shouldn’t need things, that’s selfish” “I’m afraid people will perceive me as needy and not want me around” “I want to feel strong and in control” “I’m afraid I want so much that there’s not enough in the world for me.” “I was bad today [because I ate X]” translates to “I am unworthy” “At my core I’m yucky and I’m afraid people will find out” “I want and need too much” “I’m imperfect and therefore a failure.”

Conflict about food is an indicator of conflict around emotional and psychological needs: for acceptance, for love, for safety, for validation, and more. Disordered eaters focus on behavior and appearance as indicators of their worth because their childhood circumstances and environment were such that they did not receive what they needed to develop a solid inner sense of self and self-worth. Healing from a disordered relationship with food involves recognizing belief’s about one’s needs, learning that one deserves what one needs, and learning how to get one’s needs met. This essential aspect of process of recovery leads not only out of the clutches of an eating disorder, but also to awareness of one’s innate worth and value. This can’t be done without understanding what beliefs and fears about food and body really mean. Translating eating-disordered language is key to this work.

©Copyright 2009 by Deborah Klinger, MA, LMFT, CEDS, therapist in Durham, NC. All Rights Reserved.

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