Do you have an eating disorder?

I’m sure that most of you attended a barbeque over the 4th of July weekend?  My family and I went to our share, and I was acutely aware of a number of young adults who were carrying 60, 80, 100, even 200 pounds of extra weight.  And it always seems like the host is grilling up enough meat to satisfy our troops over in Iraq, and there are bags of chips everywhere, as well as the bins of sodas that have enough high fructose corn syrup to choke a monkey!

I had a couple of thoughts about that:  1) It’s all about portion size.  2) Maybe these folks are eating like this too much of the time?  I congratulated my family and myself for only occasionally gorging ourselves like we did over the weekend.  I think the final piece is a keen awareness of what all that over-eating can do to you.  Why in the world would we punish our body with so many calories?

While I mostly deal with teens and their parents around issues dealing with electronics addiction and poor social functioning, I treat a number of individuals with body image issues.  You see, there is a fundamental underlying issue that makes a person abuse food, and then feel horrible about himself.  Are we honest in assessing why we reach for the bag of chips, and cannot stop eating until we reach the bottom of the bag; and then we’re inhaling that chip powder?

The behaviors are obvious:

• Chronic, rapid consumption of large quantities of high-carbohydrate food.
• Self soothing by eating sweets like ice cream, chocolate, and cookies.
• Persistent negative feelings about one’s body image
• Eating in isolation, as though it’s your own little secret.

What has me so concerned is that the underlying emotional issue is not being addressed.  I’ve talked about substance abuse on this show, as well as the pressures that contribute to reaching for the bottle of Vodka or the Valium.   If any of these behaviors are worrying you about yourself or someone you love, please get in touch with me.