Eating Disorder Treatment, Disordered Eating, and Body Image in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

You Deserve Help with Body Image Issues and Disordered Eating in Pennsylvania.

Eating Disorders are such a complicated and frustrating thing to have to work through. Not only is there the mental health part, but there is also that physical component. I would also like to highlight you don’t have to be diagnosed with an Eating Disorder in order to struggle with food and your body. In fact, most people struggle with some form of disordered eating and body image issues. Whether you have an Eating Disorder or you just feel completely overcome by your relationship with food and your body, you deserve to live a full and meaningful life. Will this journey be a walk in the park? Hell no! It’s going to be hard and strenuous. At times you’re going to ask yourself why even bother healing? I promise the outcome is so worth it. As your eating disorder therapist, I promise that once you find freedom in your relationship with food and your body your life will be so much more. More meaningful. Fulfilling, and More loving. You will be more filled with life.

Anyone Can Struggle with Disordered Eating in Pennsylvania.

A misconception about Eating Disorders is that they only impact privileged white adolescent girls. This is so inaccurate. In fact, Eating Disorders don’t really care about your ethnicity, socio-economic status, gender, or sexuality. Research has shown there isn’t one specific cause, it’s more like a perfect storm. A storm filled with genetics, trauma, environment, grief, religion, class, etc. I guess what I’m trying to say is, you might drive yourself crazy trying to knit-pick through all the reasons why you struggle with food and your body. I find your energy will most likely be better used by focusing on the here and now. Yes, it’s important to understand your past and the factors that may have contributed to your developing issues around food. However, we can’t go back in time and change what has happened.

How Do You Know if You’re Dealing With An Eating Disorder

Here are some questions I like asking to help people look inward to see how their relationship with food and their body is.

1. Do you feel guilty eating “unhealthy” food?

2. Is exercise a means to “make up” for the delicious meal you had last night?

3. Are you spending the majority of your day thinking about food and what you will and won’t eat later on?

4. Do you have rules around what you can and can’t eat?

5. Have you noticed you struggle with overeating, specifically at night?

6. Are you constantly dieting? Are you able to lose weight but not “keep it off?

7. What is your comfort level with your body? Are you frequently “checking” your body in mirrors and reflections?

8. Does the idea of gaining weight cause immense distress and fear?

9. Do you feel like a failure because you’ve tried so many diets but can’t stick with them? 

10. Is your self-worth tied up in how you feel about your body on any given day?

Diets just don’t work.

Dieting is the norm nowadays. Whether you live in Bucks County, Delaware County, or Philadelphia, you will see amain topic of conversation is dieting and weight loss. No matter where you look, you probably will be bombarded with something diet or weight-loss-related. It’s all in the name of health too! However, I don’t know many people who have been able to sustain all of these diets that are advertised. Is that the fault of the consumer? Hell No! Sadly, most of us feel like complete failures when we eventually “fail” another diet. Let me ask you this if there are 25 people in a class, and 23 people in that class fail a test, is it because those 23 people are incompetent? Most likely not, many would actually turn and look towards the teacher as to why they didn’t actually prepare their students for the test. With this being said, YOU are not the problem. In fact, YOU are not a failure because you can’t lose weight and keep it off! It’s the diet and weight loss industry that has failed us. 

What is Health?

We have constantly been fed that health is correlated to weight. However, this isn’t totally accurate. Research has been telling us your habits have more of an impact on your overall health than weight. This overall idea is commonly known as Health at Every Size or HAES. HAES encourages individuals to engage in habits that benefit their health but in a sustainable way. It’s not about restriction and exercising to lose weight. It’s about moving your body in a way that’s actually enjoyable. It’s learning how to listen to your body and eat what it needs. (This doesn’t just mean eating vegetables either, it means eating that slice of cake because it’s damn good!). At Revive Therapy in Pennsylvania, we utilize HAES as the standard to help people start healing their relationship with food and their bodies.

All Bodies Are Good Bodies.

Let us start out by highlighting the following: Your body is enough as it is right now at this moment. Whether you are thin, fat, short, tall, able-bodied, or disabled. Your body is okay just as it is now. And, you don’t need to change anything about yourself in order to feel worthy. I’m sure you’re aware of the body positivity movement, which has been incredibly helpful for so many people. However, we want to introduce the idea of body neutrality. Meaning, that you are not required to love your body 100% of the time in order to respect your body. Sometimes, there are days when you are not going to like the way you look. This isn’t something to feel ashamed of, in fact, it’s reality. Just like there are days where you love your partner, but maybe don’t like them very much. For a lot of people, the idea of loving their bodies seems so abstract and far away that it feels too difficult to even try to love their bodies. Let’s take a step back when we are having a bad body image day and at the same time, give that respect and worth towards our bodies because they deserve it. Eating disorder treatment in Philadelphia and body image therapy is a place for you to discover this for yourself.

A Different Approach to Eating Disorder Treatment in Philadelphia.

Reaching out and starting eating disorder treatment in Philadelphia for Disordered eating is incredibly difficult. We don’t find that demonizing your symptoms is a constructive way to treat your ED. The way we see it is your Eating Disorder is a way you have kept your head above water during some of the most difficult periods of your life. In a weird way, we’re thankful you had your Eating Disorder to support you when it felt like no one else had your back. Our eating disorder therapists are here to help you start to be curious about your ED instead of fighting it. We've learned by being curious, you can better understand the purpose your Eating Disorder plays in your life. With this knowledge, we can then work on building up other ways for you to meet your needs without needing to rely on your ED. Recovery doesn’t happen overnight and it’s a hard and long journey; the therapists at Revive Therapy in West Philadelphia and Univeristy City are here for you every step of the way!