Mindful Eating & Eating Disorders ...

Taking mindful eating a step further & introducing the idea to people experiencing eating disorders ...

The concept of ‘mindful eating’ can be very difficult for people with eating disorders to appreciate.

Very often, such individuals have lost touch with their body, other than as something to hate or try to change.  They’re often unaware of physical sensations and emotions experienced in an embodied manner; as sensations within their body.

For them, food and eating have become so detached from physiological hunger that they are no longer aware of their body's physical sustenance needs.

The anorexic has  learned to control, ignore and deny their hungers, both physiological and emotional. The bulimic switches between trying to control and deny their hungers & feeling out of control around them. The individual with binge eating disorder tends to feel out of control around their hungers and needs.

Most people with eating disorders tend to be out of touch with their body’s  physiological signs of hunger, and so they’re no longer able to eat according to their body’s hunger sensations.  They tend to create, or look for ‘rules’ around what,  when, and how, they feel they should eat.

To eat according to their body’s needs can be a frightening concept.  They worry that they won’t know when to stop.  They’ve lost trust in their own inner sensations, in their own self, to be able to regulate and satisfy their hungers.

Mindfulness can be a step towards  rediscovering this trust in self and in one’s body, and learning to eat in response to physical hunger needs.

Teaching mindfulness to clients with eating disorders

Learning mindfulness skills around food and eating can be challenging for people with eating disorders.

They’re often so out of touch with their bodies and hunger sensations that the concept can be frightening.  It’s important to remember that some people with eating disorders experience extreme fear around food, and so it’s important not to rush the learning of these ideas.

It’s often easiest to start with mindfulness around food.  Encourage people to pay attention to what they’re eating.  To look at it, to touch it, & smell it before they eat it.  And as they eat it to pay attention to any tastes, textures, smells, thoughts & feelings they’re aware of.  This encourages them to start  becoming more aware of the food that they’re eating, and to start to enjoy food again.  It’s also the first step towards getting in touch with their body’s experience of eating.

As people become comfortable with  focusing their attention on food, it’s time to encourage them to become mindful of how their body feels as they experience the food.  Encourage them to pay  attention to their body as they relearn what physiological hunger and satisfaction feels like for them.  Enabling clients to get back in touch with their body’s hunger for food can be hugely empowering.

Mindfulness can help us recognise when we’re eating in response to our body’s physical needs or for other reasons; an important distinction for us all to make ...