Women and Food

ADHD Women and Food Issues

In my 26 years as a therapist, I’ve rarely had a relationship with a female client who didn’t have a disordered relationship with food. 

 

Most children eat when they are hungry and stop when they are full, don’t they? They don’t think about whether food is good or bad, and if we feed them right, they can learn to eat in a healthy, intuitive manner. But most girls start to diet and worry about their bodies by age 8, and 80 percent of 10-year-old girls have gone on a diet. It’s a 60.5 billion dollar industry. 

No wonder so many women have eating disorders. Eating Disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental health disorder!

The clinical categories of eating disorders are binge eating disorder, anorexia, and bulimia. Because of high death rates, I don’t treat these in my office, I refer them out to specialists, but are these issues different in women who have adhd?

 

What is the relationships bewteen ADHD and Binge Eating

ADHD casuses some unique problems with binge eating, obsesity and bullimia.

  1.  You likely forget to eat if you have adhd because of low interoceptive awareness, which is a fancy way of saying you aren’t able to tune in to your body’s natural hunger cues, By the time you are able and ready to eat you might be ravenous.
  2. Your medicine can make you more likley to  have no appeteite and when it wears off you can be ravenouse leading you to eat in large amounts and gorge because you are starved.
  3. Low dopamine can lead you to be excited and thrilled by tasty food leading to binges in search of dopamine hits.
  4. Girls and women with adhd have issues with impulisvity, emotional regulation and self control, all of which may play out in food.
  5. Girls and women with adhd may try to regulate their moods with carbs.
  6. Girls and women with adhd may not know how to recognize their cues of fullness which mght lead to weight problems.

GIrls with adhd may also be more susceptible to disordered eating because of issues with emotional regulation, poor self-control and impulsivity.

 

All woman adhd or or neurotypical grow up in a culture where they are disembodied. The more we are taught to love our body the more we can heal these relationships with food.

Because women aren’t taught to love and nurture our bodies, we don’t use food in the way it’s meant to be used. I think most women have a complex and challenging relationship with food, although we dont all necessarily have an eating disorder that’s “diagnosable. ” Our eating is either restrictive in some way or involves guilt, is connected with shame or is used to control our emotions rather than just feeding our bodies. I am tired of hearing about unhealthy eating patterns and dealing with it in therapy! Our relationships to food and our relationships to our bodies are a really big problem. 

I think it’s abusive to young girls to allow them to be indoctrinated into this culture that poisons the most natural basic instinct to feed their bodies. I don’t think we are paying enough attention to this. 

Let’s teach them that these things are toxic:

  • All diets 
  • Fatphobia
  • Influencers who promote all diets and eating in a restrictive way
  • Counting calories
  • Food logs
  • Exercising in ways that aren’t enjoyable
  • Focusing on weight
  • Supplements that promise weight loss
  • Magazines and media that only portray one type of beauty
  • People who comment on their appearance or try to shame them for their bodies in any way

Instead, let’s 

  • Imbue them with ideas of body positivity
  • Teach them the shape of their body is NEUTRAL
  • Teach them FOOD is GUILTLESS
  • Tell them their WORTH has NOTHING TO DO WITH their APPEARANCE
  • Dieting is harmful to their body and mind
  • Intuitive eating IS THE WAY to GO

 

Be a feminist ally

 

Call out sexism and misogyny like you call out racism

 

I often wonder why we don’t talk about holding people more accountable for sexism and calling them out? 

 

Shouldn’t we challenge them for these ideas? 

 

When our friends comment on their bodies, 

say, ” Hey, that’s misogyny.” If necessary, explain.

Or someone you love criticizes their daughter’s body, eating or weight, say

” Pardon me, but this is internalized sexism, and misogynistic.” If necessary educate

We aren’t likely to comment about our friends going on a diet or joining a new exercise craze. Shouldn’t we challenge that for what it is?

Yes.

When you’re on TikTok, and you see a “What I ate today video.” 

Comment on how this is a problem. This person may not know. 

We let this hatred of women slide in all forms, I fear. We don’t point it out, and often we don’t even see it.  

It is not harmless. Teaching young girls that their bodies are their worth is teaching them they are objects. Objectification is the root of violence against women. And we can’t participate in that, so let’s start teaching them they aren’t. 

Medical information obtained from this website is not intended as a substitute for professional care. If you have
or suspect you have a problem, you should consult a healthcare provider.

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