I am honored to have written a post for the fabulous site, HealthyGirl.org. Sunny Sea Gold, author of Food: The Good Girl’s Drug and tireless advocate for those struggling with food issues, was kind enough to have me share my thoughts on a tough one – what to do once you’ve engaged in a binge. Here’s a bit of that post:

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Your eyelids reluctantly lift from their resting place as the harsh light washes over you, signaling it’s time to rise from this intoxicating slumber. You’d like to pull the warm comforter back over your head and disappear into the abyss of ignorance – the place where you can forget the shame of last night.

But your body won’t let you forget. You feel the distinctively sharp pains deep in your belly; you still feel the food sitting high and heavy. Your mind spins in circles, looping in and out of the names that last night held such beauty and power, but now elicit a feeling of disappointment. Oreo and Oscar Meyer and Special K and Hostess. Those bastards – letting you down once again.

You promised yourself this wouldn’t happen again, you wouldn’t let food leave you feeling bent and broken in the morning. But here you are – alone, frightened of the voraciousness of your hunger, and desperate to get out of this cycle.

Handling the day after a binge episode is most certainly not for the faint of heart; it is one of the most difficult challenges that we face in overcoming emotional overeating and binge eating. When all we want to do is hide under the covers is the precise moment at which what we need to do is call on all of our reserves and prepare for battle. We are no longer just fighting against the temptations of trigger foods, but also against the insidious voices that try to undermine our recovery….

Learn the tips and read more here…

I’m getting super excited to head to Philadelphia in March for the Binge Eating Disorder Association National Conference. (You should join us!) I’m starting to organize my thoughts and plan out the two talks that I will be taking part in. One is on the how social media can be part of the recovery process from binge eating, and the other is about whether binge eating is an addictive process and what the answer might mean for treatment. Fun stuff, right?!

Since BEDA and binge eating has been on my mind a lot lately – and, fortunately, on the minds of many of those working on the newest edition of the diagnostic manual for mental health (BED will soon be officially recognized!) – I’m focusing this week’s Five for Friday on this insidious issue. With almost 3% of the population experiencing this disorder at some point in their lifetime (that’s over nine million people!), we cannot continue to ignore the suffering that it creates for individuals, families, and even communities.

These amazing writers have covered the topic eloquently, so take a few moments to learn more:

• @ Medicinal Marzipan (via Marsha Hudnall) :: Binge Eating: You Know You Need Help, So Now What?
• @ Thick Dumpling Skin (via Amy Pershing) :: Myths About Binge Eating & Recovery Challenges
• @ Best Body Fitness :: Stuffed with Emptiness: Full Fledged Addiction
• @ Health at Every Size Blog :: Fat Stigma – Not Fat – Is the Real Enemy
• @ Oh She Glows :: Binge Eating: Why You Shouldn’t Feel Ashamed

Do you have a post to share on binge eating? Include it below!

{image credit :: ChrisCofer}

While Kerry Washington’s history of an eating disorder may seem to make her live up to the stereotype of the young Hollywood actress, it also shatters that of the powerful black woman.

The critically acclaimed star of Ray and The Last King of Scotland has talked candidly about her struggles with her body and food. In one interview, Washington revealed the ways in which her eating disorder kept her locked into an agonizing cycle.

She recalled, “I’d eat anything and everything, Sometimes until I passed out. But then, because I had this personality that was driven toward perfectionism, I would tell people I was at the library, but instead go to the gym and exercise for hours and hours and hours.”

Washington’s sharing of the details of her battle with a food obsession is, unfortunately, a rare exception. While memoirs and media spotlights of young, white women with eating disorders are seen with increasing frequency, portrayals of black women who struggle are harder to find.

The notion of eating disorders as only affecting affluent, Caucasian women is undergoing a revolution as we recognize how these illnesses impact all sectors of society. Black women are accounting for a larger proportion of those seeking treatment for disordered eating.

Like in other diverse communities, eating disorders in black communities often go unrecognized. Marna Clowney-Robinson, an eating disorder survivor, recalled, “Within my family I don’t think they actually saw it as a eating disorder. I am one out of six siblings and we all use food as a way of coping with stresses and stressful situations that came up in our lives at the time. What I was doing was pretty much normal with my siblings. So to us it was normal behavior.”

Clowney-Robinson’s experience is unfortunately common. In black communities, food often takes on seemingly sacred qualities and is used to demonstrate a range of emotions in families. Since food is often used as a means of communicating things deeply felt, it’s easy for a disorder to develop.

In fact, a 2000 study by Ruth Striegel-Moore and her colleagues suggested that recurrent binge eating, which is part of both Bulimia Nervosa and Binge Eating Disorder, is actually more common in black women than in white women.

The lack of awareness of eating disorders in diverse populations jeopardizes the treatment of these individuals. Without recognition, research funding is extremely limited and disorders go untreated for too long. When our health care system and communities already fail to acknowledge the seriousness of these illnesses, further ignorance is deadly.

Stephanie Covington Armstrong offers a compelling look inside her own eating disorder in a memoir, Not All Black Girls Know How to Eat, that shatters the notion of the “rich, white girl disease.” She notes that the black women are underrepresented in the statistics, “Because we don’t flock to traditional therapy, we are not counted.”

Like Washington and Clowney-Robinson, Armstrong is determined to make sure that eating disorders in the black community don’t go unnoticed. She said, “It is the silence that makes this disease possible. “

Do you think that eating disorders are under-represented in some communities? How have you witnessed this?

In my work, I hear stories of the ways in which human beings are abused and mistreated nearly every single day. But I don’t work in a refugee camp or foster care or a domestic violence shelter. I work with people who struggle with food and weight. And every day I hear about discrimination based on body shape and size. And every day, my heart breaks into a thousand little pieces.

I’m left wondering, if the family members and the strangers on the street and the coworkers knew the people that I know, knew the intricacies of their personalities and the depth of their beauty, would they continue to treat them this way?

Just like nearly all forms of discrimination, weight stigma can be as insidious as it is blatant. And it happens everywhere – on the playground, in the courtroom, in the workplace, in the doctor’s office. We know that children who are obese are bullied more often than peers, and that these children go on to be less likely to be hired by employers. It can even happen in the illusory safety of one’s home.

If you ever wonder if you’ve been the victim of weight stigma, you probably have… But if you’re still wondering, here are recent examples that made the national news:

• A former waitress reported the restaurant placed her on “weight probation” and counseled her to join a gym so she could fit into her extra-small size uniform.
• A 19-year-old American Idol studio audience member, has claimed that she was kept from taking a front-row seat at a recent taping because a male studio employee told her that she was too fat.
• Overweight customers are being turned away from Universal Orlando’s “Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey” roller coaster.
• Florida gynecologists turn away pregnant obese women.

In an ironic twist, discrimination of obese people leads to poorer health outcomes for those individuals, individuals. Which is why, and I’ll say this until the cows come home (who says that anymore, really??), shame-based initiatives to reduce obesity don’t work!

A few areas have enacted specific ordinances protecting citizens from weight discrimination, but individuals who are larger than average continue to be targeted and treated unjustly without recourse. The Binge Eating Disorder Association, however, wants to put an end to the shame and isolation caused by these practices. So, they established the first annual National Weight Stigma Awareness Week. The week will be held September 26-30, 2011 and its goal is to bring attention to the harm caused by weightism and bullying.

In honor of this historic week, BEDA is collecting stories of weight stigma. The stories should be 300 words or less and emailed to info@bedaonline.com (please cc: ellen@aweighout.com). When you submit stories, make sure to indicate whether you’d like to have your story on BEDA’s website along with your full name, initials only, or anonymously.