[Special guest] Butterfly Foundation- How do you know if you have an eating disorder?
For a lot of us this kind of pressure is pretty stressful and it's not the only thing that can make us worry about how we look; especially if there's a lot going on in our minds or day to day life already. This stress can turn into changes in the way we eat, exercise, dress or think about our bodies.
For some people these changes can get so bad that they can have a pretty serious impact on our health and make just getting through the day very hard work. If things are tough enough, we call this having an Eating Disorder. At least 1 million Australians are living with this right now.
Not to derail the conversation as I can see it's quite structred, but I'm genuinely interested in the topic question itself.... How do you know?
Hey @CeeGee thanks for the really great question! Yeah it can certainly be tough to know if you have an eating disorder or not but there are some key warning signs. This can include a pre-occupation with food, weight and shape (so much so that it's on your mind most of the time), it may be feeling anxious around meal times or certain food types. There may be rapid or frequent changes in weight, difficulty with sleep or concentrating, for girls loss of their period. As well as behavioural signs like a lot of dieting, excessive exercising and for some people may be purging (vomiting) after eating.
Again sometimes it can be hard to draw the line as we have mentioned on what may be healthy or not so healthy. Certainly if physical health is being impacted and if there are rigid rules around what someone should eat, when they eat. or where (it may be kept very private for someone people as social eating can be scary) then it is worth perhaps speaking with someone about it.
Awesome @Chris-Butterfly is there anything you could say to help people feel a bit more comfortable with reaching out for the first time about this?
@Ben-RO It can be a tough topic to talk about with anyone. However I think important to know that there is support out there for people who might be concerned. There are a lot of understanding professionals with experience in the area of eating concerns and body image. At Butterfly we have great counsellors as well experienced too who you can contact on 1800 33 4673 or at the Butterfly Foundation website
Hey @CeeGee! Feel free to ask as many questions as you want 🙂
I shall await @Chris-Butterfly's response 🙂
Hi everyone. Thanks for having me on. Great to be here and looking forward to the discussion
Hey everyone, welcome to tonight's infobus session! Tonight we're going to be talking about Eating Disorders with the amazing @Chris-Butterfly.
Before we get started, just make sure you've had a little look at our community guidelines and keep them in mind while we're chatting.
Also, if there's any point during tonight's session that you start to feel at all distressed I really encourage you to check out our emergency help info, which you can kind at the top right hand corner of the page, and have a talk to someone about how you're feeling. You can also get ED specific help from the Butterfly Foundation by clicking here
Time to get started with the first question!
What does “eating disorder” mean?
Heya everyone
What does “eating disorder” mean?
For me, I like to think of is as a psychological condition in which there is abnormal or disturbing eating patterns involved. People don't choose to have it. Nor is it a diet gone horribly wrong.
Yeah great definition stonepixie. I totally agree. An eating disorder is a mental health illness which refers to disturbance in behaviour around food, exercise and body image and shape. It can affect any one of any size,weight or gender.
It c ertainly isn't a lifestyl choice or a diet gone wrong and it often affects both physical and mental health.
What does “eating disorder” mean?
To me it means some kind of unusual habit to do with eating, one that might not be good for you or makes day to day life harder or more stressful than it might need to be.
@Chris-Butterfly are there things like eating disorders that don't involve eating? Like for example, can you exercise too much?
Certainly, an eating disorder may present differently for each individual. For some it may be controlling weight with strict and rigid dieting. For others it may be rigid exercise rules. And for others it may involve eating as a way of comfort.
Yeah certainly. We often see an eating disorder as being a way of coping with underlying stressors or to express or manage difficult emotions such as anxiety and depression
Hmm, time for another question!
Do you think there something that might cause an eating disorder? Or is it just something that happens?
Do you think there something that might cause an eating disorder? Or is it just something that happens?
That is a big question. There is no one thing that might cause an eating disorder. We know that there are certain risk factors that may contribute to someone develpoing and eating disorder. These include genetic predisposition and a combination of environmental and social factors. These can include low self esteem and low body image. Though just because someone may experience these does not mean they will develop and eating disorder. It can be a bit of a perfect storm that may form for someone who may engage in disordered eating behaviour.
@Chris-Butterfly what do you mean by environmental and social factors?
We know that bullying around one's weight and shape can have a real impact on body image and for some may lead to changes in dieting behaviour. Again, societal's ideal of the "perfect" body can have an impact too. Also the messages we may receive from family or friends about dieting or the reinforcement we may get from them if we have lost weight can be something that may drive continued weight loss as well.
I'm actually really curious to hear @Chris-Butterfly's answer to this one!
As for me, my answer to
Do you think there something that might cause an eating disorder? Or is it just something that happens?
I think it's a bit of both, I think there's a lot of pressure from the outside world that can have an impact on how people feel they should look, so that might cause an eating disorder, but i don't think that's the only thing. I also think that sometimes when we have dealt with a lot of stress or some really hard to deal with thoughts we can turn to different things to cope. Sometimes that might be eating too much or too little or doing something else that we can have a little control over when other things feel really hard to control or cope with.
Yeah definetley can be a bit of both. You are right society's ideal of the 'perfect' body weight, shape and size can have a real impact on how we may feel about our self!
