Is it what you’re eating… or what’s eating you?
Recent research shows that lack of family support following psychological trauma in childhood can contribute to life-long eating disorders.
It’s fascinating to think that physical malnourishment may reflect a lack of emotional nourishment in a traumatic childhood.
Jerica Berge, PhD and colleagues from the University of Minnesota just published a paper this month in Journal of Clinical Nursing demonstrating that too little support during times of abuse, death of a family member and hospitalization can all prove to be powerful triggers for eating disorders.
But it’s not always the most obvious trauma that leads to serious eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia nervosa. Even school, home and job transitions can prove to be devastating to a person’s self worth, resulting in a mistreatment of their own body.
Dr. Berge spoke to 26 women and one man receiving treatment at an outpatient clinic specializing in eating disorders in order to find if there was a link between family life and the development of eating disorders.
These patients suffered from anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and other eating disorders and they all shared one common theme: traumatic childhood events.
Please keep in mind that study is not randomized, so we have to be careful about the conclusions that we draw from it.
You can read the entire story in the May 2012 Issue of the Journal of Clinical Nursing.
Identifying the early warning signs and providing proper support for emotional trauma may be crucial to preventing some of these deadly and debilitating disorders.
The challenges of detecting and treating trauma are numerous – that’s why we created our newest comprehensive training series on Treating Trauma.
Have you treated a patient with an eating disorder that you believe may be related to early life trauma? Please leave a comment below.
The author covered some curious points here. I came across this by using Yahoo and I must confess that I am currently subscribed for your blog, it is quite great
I specialize in working with eating disorder patients and have found that most have suffered some type of trauma and mostly something pretty severe. Currently I am treating in anorexic who is getting married in the next few weeks her mother died when she was 12. Her eating disorder Hayton around this time it was hard for her to identify that it might have something to do with the fact that her mother was not around for her wedding . I try to help identify that lot of the large events in life and even the small events in life may bring up feelings about not having a mother . In addition her father was not as supportive as you would hope toward someone who lost their mother. She was happy to be helped with the connection
It was dark when I woke. This is a ray of suensihn.
I agree with the theory that it doesn’t take a severe trauma to set into play eating disorders…I worked with a bulimic client who was extremely slight as a youth and then, as a teen, decided to eat vociferously to gain weight, which had the desired effect.
Years later, the binging (and added purging) behavior ran rampant. By updating the program to a healthy standard congruent to the client’s current desires, the binging ceased.
In my latest book : The Courage To Speak Up I talk about losing 100 pounds
by speaking up. It is not easy to overcome the fears and repression that is a result
of childhood trauma.
Katy Byrne
conversationswithkaty.com
Hello Ruth, as a psychotherapist I worked with trauma clients for many years. Many also struggled with eating disorders as teens and adults. In the early 80’s I co-founded the first child sexual abuse treatment program in the state of Rhode Island. For some people there absolutely is a link between childhood sexual abuse and eating disorders/obesity. Glad to see more awareness on this issue. Thank you. Diane Petrella, MSW
Hi there! I had never heard of your story until recently. I am from the same hetwmoon as Bubba, who is playing Jason in the movie. I am also a special education major and have suffered from depression for over ten years. It is a daily struggle. Thankfully, I am surrounded with wonderful friends and family. I am really excited for this movie and hope that it brings a lot of attention (and donations) to your organization!
I am wondering about an eating issue that i have never heard labeled or connected with anorexia or bulimia: aging women who stop eating normal meals and drink most of their calories. It looks like alcoholism, depression… but the net effect is an eating disorder that compromises health, bone density, and more.
An example would be having lunch with one of these women, watching her order potato skins or some other not-so-good appetizer, eating a few bites along with a beer, then boxing the rest to take home — often for an adult child — to finish.
How many times are babies and small children given food when they fuss? It is easier than stopping and focusing on finding what has cause the child to fuss, it even fills the “hole making all that noise”. The very best of parents fall back on this when it is puzzling “what is wrong with baby?” or when in a hurry. It is easy to imagine this approach used repeatedly; stress occurs, infant child seeks nurturing, food administered. The stressed individual will associate food, eating as nurturing and an appropriate reaction to unpleasant events. Certainly there are souls out there that this was the closest thing to affection in their lives, the offering of food. Every parent has offered food to a fussy child, often it is the correct choice. But imagine if the parent has hurt the child and then seeks to quiet them or make up for abuse with treats with food. A likely scenario that could hard wire a connection in the future adults brain compelling them to eat too much and even give them an association between sugary foods and trauma relief/escape, if not as a form of nurturing.
I’m finally making the connection between a sugar addiction and early childhood mistreatment. As a small child, 6 or 7, a neighbor girl and I were sitting on the front porch when she asked me to spell F@ck. My mother called me inside and proceeded to grab my long hair, tip my head back and squirt Palmolive dish soap down my throat. I don’t remember if I even knew that the F word was a bad word. I had no idea what was happening or why. The memory of the incident evokes anger and fear. I remember wondering what was going on, tasting the bitter taste of soap, choking on the liquid as I screamed, cried and struggled to get away. I was sent to my room where I cried for what was probably an hour or two. Later company arrived when my mother sweetly called to me to come and have strawberry shortcake. It’s becoming clear to me that my sugar “addiction” is more of an attempt to deal with an array of emotions in my life stemming from my childhood. It is also evident that my affinity for throwing the F word around now is more of a rebellious act of defiance, probably stemming partly from this incident. Who the fuck water boards their own child with dish soap?
Hi Terry,
Great insight! I use the clinical EFT (Dr. Peta Stapleton Australia) to help release old memories like these, getting anger out etc. so the memory holds no triggers/does cease to cause a physiological reaction. (Minimizing the impact on out bodies/health etc.)
It’s unfortunate, but it seems the things that stay strongest in one’s memories are the hurtful incidents. Childhood is certainly a time when we are most open to those slights: cutting words from schoolmates, criticism and “correction” from parents, caregivers and sibling rivalry. Those memories create the “ruts” in our brains.
Combine that with the conditioning of using food for reward and comfort, and you have created a strong bond between comfort=food; “nurturing” or with-holding nurturing for behavior, and eating disorders. It’s actually a miracle anyone has escaped this pattern!
I have found that using EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique- Meridian Tapping) has been effective with my clients in breaking through this habitual pattern to establish mindful, and truly nurturing eating behavior based upon physical hunger, instead of trying to fill an empty heart.
Good to see real expertise on display. Your cotnirbution is most welcome.
Ruth, I use the term “age of cause” in working with clients with weight issues and all other issues that have a symptom. In hypnosis, I have them feel in the body where this “craving, compulsion, desire, disorder or trauma” lives and to touch that part of the body. Then, I ask does it have a color, shape and name? Then I direct them back to the time and place this behavior formed. Most of the time, it’s before age 7 and has to do with either Mommy or Daddy or a specific experience. There is a belief about themselves, or about life in general that gets formed at this time and we find a way to change it so it’s a positive feeling and emotion now. I use something similar to timeline therapy to bring them from the specific age of cause – forward age by age with this new feeling, emotion and belief to present time. It changes the negative emotional charge around the experience and releases the blocked energy and usually the emotional body is stuck at that age and it’s able to “mature” after the session. My initial training was in Alchemical Hypnotherapy (David Quigley) with Ilene Haykus, Denver, Colorado. I have since trained with Zoilita Grant and Anne DeChenne Drucker both in Colorado.
My experience with trauma, eating disorders and the ACE study totally supports this. I totally believe that some type of trauma is at the root of almost every condition in the DSM, including BiPolar Disorder, which is often a mis-diagnosis for PTSD.
Ruth,
I have PTSD from childhood trauma and TBI from a car accident. I recommend you contacting Brain State Technologies, Lee Gerdes, who founded it would be a wonderful guest on trauma and how it affects the brain and how it works. I am doing it and am releasing subconscious beliefs that are changing how I feel about myself to feeling like I have value. Amazing!!
Louise
Hi Ruth.
Really interesting article and so refreshing to hear about studies that focus on the importance and relevance of the emotions.
We see so many lightbulbs go on when people find out that traumas/negative experiences aren’t just stored in their conscious mind, they are stored subconsciously in the tissues, cells and organs of their bodies as well. Having learned this empowering information the person very often then wants to find out more about how they can release these traumas/negative experiences on a conscious and crucially a subconscious level as well (with brilliant techniques like EFT or Kinesiology and more.)
We will certainly let our audiences/readers know about your website … as we are passionate about delivering messages of empowerment and fulfilment in a simple, straight-forward way (much like yourself!)
Many thanks for sharing
Austin Wyse
Hi Ruth,
I have treated several people with eating disorders with a high success rate by exploring and working on a ‘trauma’ prior to the development of the disorder. Some experienced sexual abuse and were unable to tell about it. One woman as young girl was attacked and raped while taking a short cut through the woods and her parents had warned her about using that route on her own. She felt extremely guilty about the incident and never spoke of it. However she felt some sense of relief by throwing up. She found that when anxious, eating and then throwing up eased those feelings. We used EFT/Tapping uncouple the feelings from the traumatic event and during the past 10 plus years since our session, she has never had any urge to throw up to relieve any anxieties.