An eating disorder is about food...?

An eating disorder is not about the food.

I must have heard this a thousand times my first year in treatment. Each and every time I heard this I blew counselors off, I swore at therapists, I screamed and cried at my nutritionist, I pleaded with people to just understand that MY eating disorder really was just about the food.

An eating disorder is not about the food.

But then why is food the focus in treatment? Why is treatment about weight restoration, weight stabilization, and following a strict meal plan centered around food?

It has to be about food?

In the beginning of any treatment program it feels like that, but don’t be fooled, look deeper than that tablespoon of peanut butter you need to eat.

The first step is learning to eat again. The first step is nourishing your body. Learning to recognize the unhealthy patterns you have with food and fight back against them.

So it is about the food then?

Let me say it again: an eating disorder is not about the food. Period.

Yes weight restoration and weight stabilization are crucial and vital to recovery, but it is just the beginning of recovery. I do not downplay the importance of food in recovery, without food I would not be able to think clearly, my body would continue to self destruct, and the self starvation I imposed on myself would clutter my thoughts, my actions, and my mental capability. But once you begin to feed yourself there is a hard news flash- the thoughts do not magically go away.

The thoughts do not go away because even as you are eating, even as you are fighting back as hard as you can, you still have not addressed the reason(s) why you use food as a coping mechanism.

This is where it clicks: An eating disorder is not about the food.

My whole life I kept trying as hard as I could to gain control of my thoughts, my feelings, and the situations that had defined me. With a predisposition, biological factors, and social influences an eating disorder was the perfect storm brewing inside of me to think I had gained control. But it’s not real control.

An eating disorder is a coping mechanism. Once I had conquered eating again I realized it's not about the food, it’s about feelings of inadequacy, of fear, of rejection, of not being loved, of trauma, of depression, of anxiety, and of self judgement. The root of an eating disorder is repressed feelings. Food becomes the target you feel you can control, when in reality you have lost control.

An eating disorder is not about the food.