Distorted Relations to Food

At times, control and perfectionism are at the core of eating disorder behavior. Compulsive
behaviors provide the individual with predictability and comfort at a time when their lives may be feeling out of control and chaotic. With this compulsivity comes rigid and/or ritualistic behaviors centered around food. For example, one may begin to eliminate certain foods such as fats or sweets, or have ritual eating patterns such as cutting food into very small pieces. As the individual becomes more and more obsessive, attention to and ability to manage feelings and personal relationships get blocked out. Often they become emotionally empty, withdrawn and depressed. The eating patterns and obsessive focus on food will become a means to cope with difficult underlying emotions. It is an attempt to control one's self, and relationships with others.

Differentiation of Good/Bad

There is a growing differentiation of "good" and "bad" as the individual becomes more and more rigid. Perfectionism has a very narrow margin of error and all else will be unacceptable. The girl who plays a complicated piano recital piece all the way through with one small error is devastated by her total failure. This way of thinking allows no room for error, and therefore no room for growth. It is often from small mistakes that we learn new tasks. Good/bad labeling can be a cover-up for feelings of shame and worthlessness. Good/bad, all-or-nothing thinking styles can be transferred to eating habits and can be self-destructive.

Coping Using Food

Most experts agree food and eating habits are not the central problem of an eating disorder. Ways that one may use food to cope could include:

• Gaining an increased sense of control.
  
  
• Gaining an increased self-esteem and self-worth.
  
  
• Gaining an increased ability to numb self from difficult feelings.
  
  
• Gaining an indirect way to express anger and rebellion.
  
  
• Gaining an increased ability to manage depression.
  
  

By restricting food, bingeing or bingeing and purging, one can attempt to shift focus to something other than the struggles she has with boyfriends, family members or developmental changes, such as going to college.

Here is how it works:
One Model of Eating
Disorder Behavior

Trigger

Need to Disconnect from Feelings

Binge Binge/Purge Restrict

Back to Sense of Self-Control

Instead of dealing with the feeling directly, the individual will disconnect from, say anger, and use the eating disorder to stabilize themselves. For example, one may avoid experiencing anger at a discounting message from one's boyfriend. Instead of talking directly with her boyfriend, having to face possible rejection, she will turn instead to the refrigerator and binge and purge on a gallon of ice cream. Now the anxiety and shame is about food instead of the boyfriend - and a familiar sense of self-control replaces worries about having out-of-control anger at the boyfriend.

Common Thinking Errors

Chronic use of thinking errors can result in many unwanted and painful feelings. These are unrealistic ways we look at events which help us control how we feel. It can cause us to become defensive rather than accept and deal with our feelings.

• All-or-nothing:
  seeing things in black and white categories. If it is not "perfect" then it is total failure.
  
  
• Over generalization:
  seeing a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
  
  
• Mental filter:
  picking out a single negative fact and dwelling on it exclusively, all reality becomes darkened.
  
  
• Rejecting the positive:
  rejecting positive experiences by saying they don't count. This helps maintain a negative attitude.
  
  
• Jumping to conclusions:
  saying something is bad even though there are no definite facts.
  
  
• Mind reading:
  concluding that someone is reacting negatively to you without checking it out first.
  
  
• Fortune teller:
  anticipating a bad result and feeling convinced you are right.
  
  
• Magnifying or minimizing:
  exaggerating the importance of things or shrinking things until they appear tiny.
  
  
• Emotional reasoning:
  assuming your negative emotions reflect the way things really are.

Defensive Thinking Styles

Some use defenses to avoid dealing with their feelings and problems. It is important to learn which defenses you use in order to face your problems. Remember, everyone uses defenses, however, when they are used to an extreme, it results in ineffective coping.

• Acting-out: giving in
  to impulses to avoid stress by using destructive behavior.
  
  
• Blaming: saying
  someone/something is responsible for your behavior, poroblems or the way you feel.
  
  
• Denial: refusing to
  believe what is true.
  
  
• Distortion: changing
  your thinking from what is real to suit your needs.
  
  
• Grandiosity: acting
  like you know everything and are always right.
  
  
• Humor: making
  something funny in order to avoid dealing with it.
  
  
• Isolation: social
  withdrawing to avoid problems.
  
  
• Justifying: having to explain the reason behind your action.
  
  
• Maximizing: blowing things out of proportion.
  
  
• Minimizing: making things sound better than they are.
  
  
• Projecting: believing
  because you think and feel a certain way, someone else does too.
  
  
• Sarcasm: a sharp remark used to help deal with an action.

Self-acceptance is a vital part of good mental health. A part of self-acceptance is the realization that we have some physical characteristics we cannot change. Setting unrealistic goals to achieve
the impossible leads to frustration and disappointment. Understanding what influences our body's weight and shape can help us set realistic goals.

• Each person's body weight and body shape, like his or her intelligence and personality, is unique and deserving of respect.
  
• Like it or not, our genes have a primary influence in establishing and defending a "set-point" weight range. This natural and healthy weight differs for each person. Some people are simply destined to be heavier or lighter than others.
  
• Cultural factors try to invalidate both the facts of biology and our respect for individual differences by insisting that all women be slender or a least spend a lot of time and energy trying to become thinner.
  
• "Swallowing" cultural messages about the value of slenderness lead many people-in particular girls and women-to mistrust their bodies and their brains and to diet in search of a slender, "fat-free" body.
  
• In the long run, whether you are male or female, dieting below your set-point causes binge eating and tends to promote weight gain.
  
• People who do not opt out of the "diet game" run the risk of developing an eating disorder.