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DIET CULTURE IN THE WORKPLACE - HOW TO CREATE A SAFER WORK ENVIRONMENT FOR YOURSELF

Diet Culture in the workplace - How to create a safer work environment for yourself

I started a new job in January and on my third day in the office a coworker told me all about her intermittent fasting diet and daily exercise routine. When asking my boss whether people use the break room to eat lunch, she replied with “if you can find the time.” There is a sign in the elevator that says “Burn calories, not electricity. Take the stairs.”

 

Diet culture is everywhere, and it often seeps into our work environment. The average person spends 92,000 hours of their life working, so it is likely that you will come across some food and body talk at some point in your career.[1] Spend some time reflecting on what your work culture is like. Do people talk positively about food and their bodies? Are breaks at lunchtime supported? What do people eat at lunch? Are workplace wellness routines encouraged? It is important to recognize when diet culture is popping up and how to protect ourselves from it.

 

If you notice conversations or situations at work to be triggering, here are some things you can do to keep yourself safe:

 

  • Walk away from the conversation. It may not be easy... Read More...

The Role of Gender-Sensitive Treatment in Adolescent Eating Disorder Prevention and Recovery

In recent years, eating disorder treatment centers and the treatment world, in general, have made a conscious effort to more openly address the hugely important role gender plays in the development and treatment of eating disorders. Gender is an important part of self-identity; as a pertinent example, cisgender men are expected by society not to suffer from body image struggles or eating disorders, although they happen much more often than the expectation. For this essay, we’ll focus on what has become a defining discussion of the 2020s; the rising recognition of the transgender population, their rights, and their risk factors.

When it comes to eating disorder recovery, the first thing is recognizing the incidence of eating disorders requiring treatment in the transgender community. Although the causes are many, this higher rate of occurrence is largely due to the much higher occurrence of causative factors like body dysmorphic disorder in trans populations as compared to the general community. Per one recent study, transgender college students experienced a rate of... Read More...

A Personal Narrative: My Eating Disorder Found Hope in Recovery

Eating Disorders are a distorted perception of your body, one often caused by the unreasonable expectations women feel by society. Each image of a slender tall model seen on an advertisement impacts you. Social media influencers of beautiful women and the comments made by their followers impact you. In the back of your brain these cultural beauty standards make you question your self-worth. Am I good enough? Why don’t I look like that? These can slowly root and distort your concept of a perfect body, till it’s firmly a belief accepted and unquestioned, by you. Most women at some point feel like their body isn’t good enough. 

The contemporary disorder that I am focusing is Anorexia Nervosa. Anorexia Nervosa is starving yourself. It is a weight loss goal that when surpassed still continues. It is a need for control that slowly feeds on any part of who you were before it. These disorders become your identity, your desire, your passion. As it grows stronger you begin to hide behind it, isolating you from anyone who might ask if you need help. Ultimately leading the disorder as your only companion. 

Anorexia became mine. 

September

Although I had never been jealous of my best friends’ looks, I had secretly wished I was as small as her. When we ate junk food I felt resentment... Read More...

COVID has created a need for more eating disorder treatment centers. A new residential treatment center, Juneberry is a new option for those seeking treatment.

Alsana expands eating disorder treatment in the greater St. Louis area with the opening of its seventh Residential Treatment Center.Located in Pacific, MO, Juneberry RTC creates much-needed space to serve even more higher-acuity clients.

 

Alsana, an eating disorder treatment provider and community with in-person programs in Alabama, California, and Missouri and virtual programs that serve clients throughout the United States, announced this week that Juneberry, its seventh Residential Treatment Center (RTC) (its second in the state of Missouri, not including PHP/IOP programs) is now open to serve adult clients of all genders in Pacific, MO and throughout the greater St. Louis area.

Juneberry is a 12-bed facility that rests on a serene, 14-acre campus, ideal for group sessions, movement experientials, and peaceful walks during clients’ free time. It is led by a team of highly credentialed treatment professionals, including Senior Regional Executive Director Rebecca Baker, M.Ed., LPC, SEP, CEDS-S, who also oversees Juneberry’s sister site in Ballwin, MO. Baker has been helping clients in recovery heal from their eating disorders since 2008.

 

Clients who enroll in a Juneberry program can expect to receive the highest quality of holistic care and treatment designed in... Read More...

Love to Gain - Hate to Lose (Poem)

Authors Note: I wrote this one before I went into ED treatment Spring 2019. I needed to lose weight for acute medical reasons and it’s challenging when you have an eating disorder to remain balanced in and the persistence you have to have to lose a significant amount of weight and also maintain that loss.

TRIGGER WARNING: 

 

 

 

 

 

***
Love to Gain Hate to Lose

Lose weight they said
I turned my head
To hide my tears
Ashamed with fear

Have surgery
You’re much too big
You disgust us all
It will make you small

I’m quite aware
I’m much too fat
Plenty of self hate
Inner chit chat

Diagnostically assessed
As food obsessed
Deeply criticized
You must downsize

You eat too much
Can’t you see
You’re an insurance drain
On society

Just cut her up
So she can’t eat
Soon to be
Uncategorized from obesity

Not so fast
I do agree
I hate myself
And my body

Refused to be sliced
From end to end
Did plenty of that myself
My friend

Non-surgical weight-loss
A second tract to try
A well hidden eating disorder
Is this how I will die?

Must stay focused
All of the time
Every decision
I loathe mealtime

Don’... Read More...