The modern cult of sports and diets has gone too far, according to a psychotherapist

In short, an eating disorder is a problem that appears in the context of psychological disorders. The truth is that many people believe that a complicated relationship with food only appears in people of weak or “abnormal” character. Another popular opinion is that eating disorders have nothing to do with people who play sports. Both are completely incorrect.

First, an eating disorder has nothing to do with food, but anxiety and loathing for one’s own body. If you’re an anxious person or feel an aversion to looking at your own body, it’s high time you found out what’s going on.

Incrível.club talked to psychotherapist Anna Zubova, who explained to us why we should reflect on this subject. Read until the end of this interesting post, which is essential to better understand your mind’s reactions and even help other people.

1. the genetics

Although experts do not agree with each other on the exact percentage, they believe that there is a strong relationship between genetic inheritance and the development of this disorder. For example, Professor Tracey Wade of Flinders University concluded that genes determine by 50% the probability of developing an eating disorder and depression.

two. The family

Have you ever heard your relatives make comments related to weight, body type or eating habits since childhood? These are the erroneously called “affectionate jokes”, like “my little elephant!” or “my chubby”, even the cruel criticism “who will love and want to date such a fat person?”. If you’re a parent and you’ve noticed that you talk to your child this way, it’s important that you kick the habit as soon as possible. Even if you believe that you “say it with love and not in an offensive way” and think that the child also understands it that way. There are other proven ways to create an unhealthy relationship with food: control, punishment or encouragement regarding its abuse: “If you get a good grade on the test, we’ll go to a pizza place”, “if you’re late, you won’t have dessert ”. Later, for adults who grew up in these conditions, food ceases to be food and becomes a superimposition of emotions. It is from this that the inability to control the habit of overeating under stress, for example, arises.

3. The world where we live

Currently, we don’t have the slightest chance of escaping the propaganda of ideal biotypes and the obsession with exercise and good physical shape. Diet culture does not allow people to relax, benefiting from our eternal dissatisfaction with our own image. Not everyone who follows these trends has eating disorders, but diets become a trigger for this to happen. Therefore, it is estimated that a quarter of people may develop some problems with food.

4. The individual characteristics

This list includes the congenital pathologies of the nervous system and the features of the gastrointestinal tract and endocrine system. While it is true that these types of deviations are rare.

This example is just to handle the situation more simply and clearly: every eating disorder case is a complex mix of root causes + personal trauma🇧🇷 Trauma is always very particular, it depends on each person. People are not the same. Therefore, they can live the same experience and each one will face the situation in a completely different way. Therefore, trying to reassure someone with the words “well, I went through the same thing but I’m fine”, will not work.

Below are some of the types of eating disorders. Some are obvious and others not so much. You can use these examples to observe in yourself or your loved ones:

“Healthy” people are indignant: Can anorexics not see that their body is not healthy? However, the issue here is not what they see, but what they feel. People who have this disorder go crazy with panic if they gain more than 100 grams and are not able to bear the appearance of their own body. Furthermore, the guarantee of any kind of successful treatment is the willingness to do so. The only way to save yourself is to start eating, but that’s exactly what a person with this disorder doesn’t want to do. It is a pathological condition. Therefore, anorexia leads the number of deaths not only among eating disorders, but also among all mental disorders.

Overeating, compulsively

People’s psyches are desperately looking for a way to relax.🇧🇷 some people, at the end of a hard day, can have “a little glass” of some alcoholic beverage; others have the habit of “unloading” their anger and frustrations on loved ones or closest people; and there are those who seek to relieve stress by eating something tasty. Depending on the seriousness of the situation, the person may eat a piece of cake, or he may devour the entire cake. It’s easy to guess that people with binge eating are often overweight. After this out of control episode, they feel guilt, discomfort and remorse, their emotions build up and, as a result, another crisis soon appears.

Those who are far from having this problem often conclude “authoritatively” that it is a matter of a lack of willpower. But that would be the same as saying, following the same criteria, that an open fracture can be healed with willpower. The correct treatment for this problem would be to work on all the factors that cause the disorder.

The person suffering from bulimia is extremely cruel to their body and their food cravings. The basis is the same: hatred and loathing for your body. The dissatisfied person starts a diet (the more severe the better, of course) and, when hunger takes over, the person is dominated by a frustrating shame and, what is more dangerous: he feels that he needs to “cleanse”. This “purification ritual” usually consists of self-induced vomiting, but laxatives or diuretics are also sometimes used. As with the diet, such cleansing must necessarily be unpleasant, only then will the terrible feeling of guilt and discomfort go away.

People fitnessvegans and activists for a healthy lifestyle

You hardly expected to see ideal body people on this list of disorders. What kind of disturbance can there be here? The person takes care of his body, goes on a diet and plays sports. A modern standard with excellence.

Let’s clarify in advance: there is nothing wrong with doing sports for pleasure and selecting the foods you want to consume, thinking about their consequences for the body. We are talking here about those people who, in order to follow modern trends, fanatically devote themselves to the cult of thinness, whose life is literally meaningless without it.

The price of this super-correct lifestyle is the obsession with food (what to eat, at what time, with what, the amount of calories…), constant anxiety, exhausting exercises that cannot be skipped. and that they must be done in every way, regardless of whether the body is fit or not. An enormous amount of energy begins to be invested in a single facet of life, and the rest of the world must revolve around it.

It is not by chance that the concept of “sports bulimia” was created: doing the heaviest and most difficult training, according to the guilt that the person feels for having allowed himself to eat something wrong (“I’m too fat!”), or because your body is not perfect enough (“I’m really lazy!”).

At the same time, the vast majority of people who are obsessed with the diet religion are not professional sportsmen. They are ordinary people, who live in constant fear that their bodies are not perfect enough, which means that they themselves, according to the impositions of modern culture, will be strangers in this world. Think of today’s most successful and famous people and you will see how insignificant the percentage of “slim people” is among them. The desire to have complete control over the body is common today, the desire to fit it into a standard of beauty, regardless of age, constitution and individual health indicators.

Body Positivity

An important warning: we are talking about the negligent way that the original idea of ​​the body positivity adopted today. Against the background of adamant advertisements about diets, some equally adamant protests have emerged, which deny the sport and the general desire to take care of yourself: “Yes, I eat anything and my weight is high, but I love my body the way it is! ”. Unfortunately, ignoring the obvious problems related to overweight and health definitely has nothing to do with love and self-care.

Of this entire list, only the first three points seem really serious. But, in reality, the greatest danger is in the last two, not because they are more serious problems, but because they are classified as “socially approved”. A person with anorexia is clearly sick and needs help, while a “fitness guy” deserves respect and admiration. But, deep down, being fanatical about a healthy lifestyle and/or following a “Body Positive” style without worrying about the consequences that being overweight can cause are two extremes of the same rejection of oneself. And even if it seems that everything constantly revolves around food, it has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Try to answer these questions honestly:

Have you ever noticed that you eat uncontrollably? What did you eat generate feelings of shame, guilt or sadness? Do you feel an insistent desire to eliminate the calories ingested? Do you find it difficult to deal with feelings that arise about your food or your body? Do you count calories, count the exact time until the next meal, consider and ponder exactly what you should eat, etc., without special medical prescriptions or follow-up with a health professional? Do you worry too much about your appearance, do you feel a constant desire to lose weight or a constant fear of gaining weight? Is the level of your self-esteem directly related to your weight and thinness?

If you answered yes to at least three of these questions, it is possible that you are prone to eating disorders. And in this…