Content warning: This blog references eating disorders and suicide.
For Mental Health Awareness Week 2024, the theme is “Mental Health Movement.” For many, that could translate into exercise, which is one interpretation of the issue. For those suffering from eating disorders, movement or exercise poses some challenges. While each May we are presented with a different theme for Mental Health Awareness Week, each January we are exposed to the constant theme of countless advertisements about fitness plans, calorie counting, and intermittent fasting.
For many, it is upsetting to be told to exercise and change our bodies to fit a perceived social ideal. For some, this tirade about diet culture is life-threatening.
I was hospitalized 20 years ago for anorexia. Only 2 years later I tried to take my life due to the helplessness I felt over my binge eating disorder. I have been dangerously underweight due to one eating disorder and suicidal due to another. For another decade or more, bulimia permeated my daily life. I’ve seen the darker side of eating disorders, witnessing near-death cases and experiencing my own. I have experienced psychotic hallucinations due to low body weight.
Eating disorders and food-related mental health conditions are one of the most commonly diagnosed mental illnesses in the UK. BEAT charity estimates eating disorders 1.25 million people in the UK are affected by eating disorders. While the majority of people living with eating disorders are women, men make up about 25% of those diagnoses. And the number of young people with eating disorders in England who ended up in hospital has risen dramatically during the pandemic. In data published by NHS Digital in 2021, worrying statistics revealed that the number of under-20s admitted to hospital for eating disorders between 2020 and 2021 exceeded 3,200, almost 50% more than the previous year.
More research is needed on eating disorders.
Calorie counting and measuring, weight, and the obsession with losing weight dominated most of my life. I measured my worth, my identity and my life by measurements. Breaking free from those shackles is a daily choice and I am still learning new tools to do it effectively.
I have recently read a lot about how Eating disorders could be a form of attachment disorder.linked to recent work in attachment theory. Ideas carry weight with me, if you’ll excuse the pun.
Another part of my ongoing recovery journey has been exercise. Moving our bodies has been shown to be beneficial for our mental health, within reason. Raising money for charities with fundraising runs has been good for me. According Mayo Clinic Regular exercise helps relieve symptoms of depression and anxiety by releasing endorphins and other natural chemicals that improve feelings of well-being.
When it comes to exercising and staying fit during eating disorder recovery, it’s all about balance, but no scale.
During Mental Health Awareness Week, as we head into summer once again, this year’s message is about movement. However, the message that appears incessantly on social media and devices, on television, radio and billboards, as summer approaches, is that you must take action to lose weight. This is the same message that almost killed me.
Last year, I bought a new phone and was suddenly given the option to receive alerts from a Fitness app to tell me how many calories I had burned that day. This led to increased anxiety and focusing on a compulsion to measure myself that I thought I had unlearned.
My new phone, like many other devices not marketed for their health-focused features, tends to have step counting, calorie burning, and exercise tracking built in as standard. This means that even if you haven’t purchased a device to intentionally track your activity, data about your body is often just a few steps away.
Worryingly, other studies suggest that Calorie counting apps can trigger or exacerbate eating disorders..
Dr. Carolyn Plateau has studied the Effect that fitness trackers and health-focused apps can have.. According to Dr. Plateau’s research, higher levels of body dissatisfaction and disordered eating were identified among those who use tracking tools, compared to those who do not. Additionally, many eating disorder patients report that they use calorie counting apps and that these tools have a negative impact about your eating disorder symptoms, as Dr. Plateau has described.
“Our findings were interesting as they indicated that those who tracked their activity or food intake showed higher levels of both disordered eating and exercise than those who did not. “Higher levels of purging behavior (exercising to control or modify weight or shape) were found among the follow-up group.” Dr. Carolyn Plateau
This Mental Health Awareness Week, the theme is “movement,” so move your body. Enjoy the movement. Our bodies keep us alive, although sometimes our minds tempt us towards another option. My heart, my lungs and all my vital organs want me to stay alive to enjoy this fabulous life I am living in this incredible toy: my body.
Enjoying what my body can do and all the life-affirming experiences within it for as long as possible has nothing to do with calorie count, weight, shape or size. It has everything to do with the JOY of enjoyment.
If you need help or more information about eating disorders please contact UK Eating Disorders Charity: Beat (beatateatingdisorders.org.uk). And you can read about MQ’s research on eating disorders here.
