Tag: Eating disorder
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Are we the biggest losers for watching The Biggest Loser?
Weight loss TV shows were common in the early 2000s. Did these shows plant the seed of diet culture in you when you were growing up? We called it “The Ad Game”. My younger brother and sister and I invented it while watching a weight loss show on TV. (There were quite a few of…
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What’s the difference between an eating disorder and disordered eating?
Disordered eating is not well defined. Dietitian Lucy Carey explains the difference between eating disorders and disordered eating. Eating disorders are basically a disturbance in eating that is so bad and so persistent that it affects physical and mental health. Each kind of eating disorder has a set criteria that need to be met for…
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What NOT to bring to Christmas dinner
Comments about what someone is eating, or their body size and shape, are sadly common over Christmas dinner, but never appropriate. “You actually want some? I didn’t think you’d eat anything so unhealthy!” “It’s so good to see you tucking in.” “Go on, have some more. You need fattening up.” These are all things that…
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You’re not meant to know that
Eating disorders often have a ‘voice’ to their victims. Dietitian Lucy Carey provides insight into how to be louder than the eating disorder. “From my perspective, everything is going really well,” I told my client. She gave me a wispy little smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “In fact,” I carried on, “It’s going so…
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The benefits of binge eating
The reason you binge eat is because you get a benefit from it. Dietitian Lucy Carey explains how this works. The exam was a week away. I had been studying for this for months, I was only going to get one shot at passing it, and the pass rate was 80%. Boy oh boy was…
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From binge eating to the bin
A scarcity mentality around food makes binge eating more likely. Dietitian Lucy Carey explains how to create an abundance mindset instead. I went into the supermarket knowing exactly what I wanted: lolly cake. That classic Kiwi treat. There was nothing I wanted more in the world than a thick slice of malty fudge interspersed with…
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No, I won’t weigh your daughter
“She just doesn’t understand that she can’t be like her friends. They all go out and get chocolate bars and junk food and I just need someone to make her understand that she’s not a normal teenager. Dancers can’t do those things.” The woman on the phone kept up her diatribe, hardly drawing breath. “I’d…
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Stop praising weight loss
Weight loss is a hard thing to achieve. Period. So when you see someone who’s transformed their body I understand there’s a pull there to say, “Wow, you look great, that’s amazing that you’ve lost 10 kilos!” But I think we’re dangerously missing the mark by praising weight loss. I personally know of a couple…
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An explosion of eating disorders
I’ve worked in the grey area of disordered eating for a while, often seeing young athletes who reluctantly come to see me with their concerned parent. It’s an area that I love, because seeing these teens get better is so rewarding. It used to be that occasionally a parent would drag their teen along for…
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Does Batman have bigorexia?
Dietitian Lucy Carey probes into the pressures our young men face, and how body dysmorphia is more common than we think. Barbie gets a lot of crap for having a body that’s simply impossible to reconcile with good health. Since she came onto toy shelves in 1959, Barbie’s gotten thinner and thinner and her breasts…