Relationship with Food and Body

Are You Coping with the Coronavirus Pandemic with Food?

Have you noticed an increase in your emotional eating, binge eating, or mindless eating patterns since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic? Have you been using food as comfort and entertainment to combat the loneliness, boredom, and stress of sheltering at home? Have you noticed more stress and anxiety related to grocery shopping, cooking, eating, and exercising? You are not alone. During times of crisis, we sometimes turn to negative coping patterns to help soothe our overwhelmed nervous system. If you are struggling with your relationship with food and your body right now, online therapy may be helpful. Schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation to find out more about online therapy with one of our counselors during the coronavirus pandemic.

Why Do We Struggle with Our Relationship with Food and Body Image?

We live in a world where we are constantly bombarded with messages about what our bodies should look like. Our appearance is used to judged our attractiveness, capability, value, character, and morality. In this appearance-driven world, it is no wonder that so many of us struggle with our relationship with food and our bodies. You may come from a family with a long history of body image concerns, battles with food and disordered eating, and trauma. You may have been dissatisfied with your body for so long that you do not remember a time when eating was effortless or when standing in front of a mirror felt positive. 

Signs of Struggles with Food and Body Image

Some of the signs of this struggle with food and body include:
  • Fear about gaining weight
  • Unhappiness about your body holds you back from certain activities that you would otherwise enjoy (e.g., swimming, sex, etc.)
  • A lack of awareness of hunger or fullness
  • Thinking about food constantly; feeling that food controls your life
  • Having “good” and “bad” categories for food
  • Engaging in overeating, emotional eating, restricting (e.g., skipping meals), binging (e.g., eating multiple meals worth of food at once), and purging (e.g., vomiting, over exercising) behaviors
  • Feeling extremely guilty after eating
  • Uncomfortable eating with others or in front of others; hiding your eating habits from others (e.g., eating when other family members have gone to bed)
  • Exercise with the sole purpose of burning calories and losing weight
  • Feeling uncomfortable or irritable if you were not able to exercise for one day
  • Holding on to clothes that are too large or too small for you
  • Constantly checking yourself in the windows and mirrors that you walk by 

Struggling Alone with Food & Body Image Concerns Is Difficult

Body image concerns and struggles with food may impact your life in small and large ways. It is not uncommon to have struggles with food and body image for years without seeking help. Our society has made it so normal to be on diets and pop culture have create a false hope that we can be thin if we put out minds to it. It may take a long time to realize that this struggle is not necessary and you are ready to be free. ​

What Does Freedom from This Struggle with Food and Body Look Like? How Do I Get There?

Imagine a world where body image no longer mattered. How would your life be different? What would you do more or less of? How would you relate to yourself and others? 

Freedom from this struggle with food and body image will mean that you are no longer constantly thinking about your body and what you eat. You will eat when you feel hungry and stop when you feel full. You will look at your body with gratitude for what it can do for you rather than how it compares to society's standards. You will find the confidence to do the things that brings you pleasure.  

When you enter into treatment with one of our therapists who specialize in this area, they will first take a broad and comprehensive approach to understanding you and your life. This includes understanding your current stressors and symptoms, your relationship dynamics, your past experiences, your family history, your sociopolitical context, your cultural background and identities, your coping strategies, the patterns that you have noticed in your life, your strengths and resilience, etc. They will then explore with you the emotions attached to food and body image, identify coping strategies to manage your emotions, and tune into your body’s innate wisdom and wholeness.

The Health at Every Size Approach to Counseling

In counseling sessions focused on your relationship with food and body image concerns, our therapists all use the Health at Every Size approach. Through this approach, we will work together to improve your relationship with food and your body. The Health at Every Size approach can be summed up by five basic principles:
  • All body shape and sizes are acceptable. There is no ideal weight.
  • We prioritize healthy behaviors and actions to promote our physical, emotional, economic, social, spiritual, environmental, and communal well-being.
  • We work toward addressing our own biases, stigma, and discrimination against weight and size oppression. We acknowledge that sizeism is closely related to other forms of discrimination and oppression based on race, gender, sexual identity, age, socioeconomic status, ability, etc.
  • Eating is flexible, individual, pleasurable, and based on each person’s nutritional needs, hunger, and cultural identities.
  • Movement is joyful, life-giving, and accessible to people of all sizes and abilities. 

How Will I Know That I Am Making Progress or When I Am Better?

Progress in therapy is not as a linear path across time but a circular journey to health and healing. Progress in therapy is like a screw. In therapy, you may feel like we are going around and around on the same issues but each time we pass by them we are going deeper. Through the  practice of effective coping strategies, we will immediately address the most painful aspects of your life and decrease the symptoms that hinders your everyday living. From there, we will go deeper to explore the roots of your relationship with food and body. When you have noticed significant improvements in your mood, relationships, and functioning, we will then focus our energy on preventing relapses in the future and to explore ways for you to live a life that is full of hope, joy, and empowerment. 
To get the most value out of our work together, you can take responsibility for your part of the therapy process: show up on time, communicate cancellations timely, think about our sessions beforehand, complete assignments, be ready and motivated to make changes in your life, value directness in feedback, take risks, try new things, and apply the new coping strategies to your life. ​

Begin Counseling in Our Ballard Clinic

You do not have to live with constant self doubt and judgment. Constantly worrying about what you are eating, feeling guilty for breaking yet another strict diet, or holding a negative body image can impede your creation of a life worth living. If what you've read here resonates and you live in the Seattle area, we encourage you to reach out and contact us today.  We can schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation and begin exploring how psychotherapy can help you on your journey toward healing. 

Other Counseling Services

You are a unique individual, and you might not have only one issue you are struggling with that fits neatly under a difficult relationship with food or a negative body image. That is why, we offer a variety of counseling services at our Seattle counseling clinic.  Each of our exceptional counselors take a holistic approach to your mental health using techniques from various evidence-based counseling approaches to help you create lasting change and thrive with challenges. Some of the other services we offer include psychotherapy for anxiety, trauma, and depression as well as marriage and couples counseling.