Translator: Hiroko Kawano Reviewer: Mirjana Čutura
Let's talk about food.
I want you all to think about the roles that food plays in your life.
As you probably know, food fulfills one of our most basic needs for survival.
It provides us with the nutrients we need to grow and thrive.
And beyond this, it can carry many more significant meanings to us.
We use food to bring family and friends together,
to celebrate and mourn, to excite our senses,
and help heal illness and to encourage passion and creativity.
Many people find enjoyment and satisfaction in food.
But what if food was your demon?
What happens when you use food to fill a void?
To stuff an emptiness inside of you?
What is it like when food literally takes over your life?
This is what happened to me
when I began struggling with binge eating disorder.
I've decided to share my deepest secret with you today
in hopes of bringing more attention to binge eating disorder, also called BED.
Some of you may be familiar with BED or maybe not
as it didn't become an official clinical diagnosis until 2013.
According to the National Eating Disorder Association,
binge eating is considered a disorder
when a person frequently eats a large amount of food in a short period of time.
They feel out of control when doing this
and experience distress and shame afterwards.
Now, it's different from the eating disorder bulimia
in that someone with BED doesn't use things like purging, laxatives
or excessive exercise
to counter the binge behavior.
BED is also more than just overeating on occasion.
I'm sure many of you can relate to eating way too much at a Thanksgiving dinner
or eating past the point of feeling full sometimes.
But that doesn't mean everyone who does this has BED.
So, let me give you a better understanding
of what it's like to suffer from binge eating disorder
by sharing what it was like for me.
Imagine every morning you wake up, your thoughts drift to one thing: food.
And as the day goes on,
you spend a lot of time thinking about what you will eat,
when you will eat and where you will eat it.
All you can think about is food, but you don't want anyone to know this.
So, when you're in public,
you try to eat a normal portion and act like food is no big deal.
But really, in the back of your mind,
you're planning a secret race to the drive-through
or a quick dash to the store to get all your favorite foods.
It's a bittersweet relief when you're all alone.
You can finally tend to your cravings.
Even if your stomach's not that [empty],
even if you're not that hungry,
you convince yourself eating this is going to be worth it,
and you're going to stop when you're full.
But instead of you consuming the food, the food begins consuming you.
And somewhere in your brain, you're trying to pull the emergency brake,
but your mind and body have already switched to autopilot,
and you can't stop eating, won't stop eating and don't stop eating
until all the food in front of you is gone.
And any gratification you did feel is gone too.
No matter how full your stomach is,
there's still an emptiness in the pit of your being.
It's as if your stomach is some foreign limb,
and all that remains is shame.
You look in the mirror and see a failure staring back.
You try to make yourself feel better by promising it will never happen again,
and immediately you go to throw out any other tempting food
that you bought recently.
Or you decide that you've absolutely blown it,
and now you might as well just stuff more food down.
Sometimes, you wish food didn't even exist at all.
But the reality is, for those of us with BED,
we can't just avoid or completely eliminate food from our lives
because we need it to survive.
And we're tempted and teased everywhere we turn with food.
It's not hidden in the back alleys,
age-restricted to buy or illegal to consume.
It's on every corner, every commercial, every machine in the hallways
and often the main event of meeting up with friends and family.
It can feel like the world is closing in on you
as the drive-throughs never close, the grocery shelves are never empty
and food delivery is just one phone call away.
In my own experience,
it got to the point where it didn't matter what emotions I was feeling
or even what kind of food I was eating.
Binging was a nightmare I couldn't wake up from,
and I felt completely alone.
Now, even though many people living with BED may feel alone,
it's actually the most common eating disorder in the U.S.
I can still remember the day, years ago,
a guy on a TV show I was watching opened up about his BED diagnosis.
This was the first time I felt relief,
knowing that I wasn't the only one feeling isolated
in a painful and terrifying relationship with food.
I still kept it a secret for a few years after that
before talking to a dietitian
and then waited another year
to finally confide in my immediate family and closest friend.
Now, the reason why many people with BED may choose not to open up about it
is because they're afraid others will view it as a lack of willpower
and not as a true disorder.
I want you to think for a moment
if you've ever heard
someone who doesn't struggle with their eating habits
say to someone who does,
"Oh, maybe you should just try eating less,
maybe try not buying so much food,
or you could try this diet or that diet."
And while these ideas and comments seem harmless
or are even intended to help the person,
they can be defeating for those of us with BED to hear,
especially if we've already tried it all before.
Before seeking treatment, I was adamant
that the cure to my issues with food was to diet and cut out all junk food.
I began to count calories and exercise every single day.
A week would go by or sometimes even a month or two of no binging.
So, on the outside,
it appeared to those around me that I was healthier
because I'd lost some weight.
But really, on the inside,
I was continuing to obsess about food just as much as before.
The more that I would deem certain foods off-limits or forbidden,
the more they would torment me, and I would eventually binge on them.
My life became cycles of binging on food and restricting food,
binging and restricting, binging and restricting over and over.
Once I got into treatment,
I learned that weight loss and detoxing from sugar
was not the be-all and end-all solution like I thought.
Moderation is usually a part of recovery eventually,
but there's often a root cause or trigger
underneath the destructive behaviors that needs to be addressed first.
It is much more about the balance in all aspects of your life,
not solely the physical.
Now, I want to share with you the four main changes I've made in my life
that have strengthened my recovery in BED so far.
My hope is that it could help any of you who are struggling with the same behaviors
or even something similar.
The first is seeking help.
Now, I know this is no new revelation or anything,
but a lot of people with BED don't know that there's treatment for it.
I didn't, at first.
I thought I was simply a failure with no self-control,
hopelessly addicted to food.
Once I found a dietitian and a therapist
who understood that it was a severe disorder,
that changed everything for me.
Getting professional treatment is a significant step
in reaching out to gain a lifeline.
It also becomes important to branch out to family members or friends
who you can trust.
You might have to educate them a little on eating disorders
and be patient with them.
But doing so can give them the opportunity to be a positive support system for you.
Now, the second thing that has impacted my recovery
is called "intuitive eating."
I came across this concept when my dietitian started talking to me
about becoming aware of my hunger and fullness.
According to its creators,
there are 10 principles of intuitive eating
that, in short, describe how it is not about diet culture,
meal plans, discipline or willpower
but about healing your relationship with food.
I had to learn to let go of my love-hate relationship with food
and accept that food will always be a part of my life.
This was a completely new idea to me.
Making peace with food requires
that you stop categorizing certain foods as good or bad based off calories alone
and stop labeling yourself as good or bad based off one meal alone.
Intuitive eating encourages you to let go of the demanding rules and beliefs
that are holding you hostage from finding enjoyment in food.
You deserve to feel satisfied after eating.
The third thing that has helped in my recovery
was by deleting all my social media.
Now, you might be thinking, "What would that have to do with BED?"
But I want you to think about what you see when you're on social media.
I saw a continuous feed of the newest fad diets and crazed fitness trends.
Now, I'm not saying that the promotion of health is a bad thing.
What I'm talking about is being bombarded by overwhelming weight-loss tips,
Photoshop models and the inspiration to be everything we weren't born to be.
And then, scrolling straight into more posts about body positivity,
how dieting is a bad thing
and advertisements of celebrities indulging in fast food.
If we're honest,
it can be confusing to live in a culture
that both worships and then continually criticizes food.
When I was on social media,
I was also constantly comparing myself to others.
How many of you have ever looked at someone else's profile
and thought to yourself, "I could never be that thin,"
"I could never be that happy,"
"I could never be that confident"?
I think many of us carry the dead weight of comparison around.
Sometimes, it can feel like we're imprisoned
in a society of contradictions that says, "You need to be thin and be like Barbie.
But don't starve yourself.
Love your body."
Taking away these societal beauty standards
and everyone else's personal beliefs about food
that are plastered all over social media
can be freeing.
Now, the fourth and most profound thing
that has given me a new outlook on recovery
was coming across this idea of accepting the void,
the void being this unexplainable emptiness in your life.
I believe we all have a void to some extent,
but we choose our own way to satisfy it until we can learn to embrace it.
Your void filler might be food like me.
Or it could be an addiction to shopping, social media, alcohol or relationships.
No matter what it is,
I believe the only way we can truly become whole
is to pursue understanding of that emptiness, of that void
instead of our useless attempts to feed it, fight it or cover it up.
The cycles of binging and restricting that I was trapped in for so long
began to occur much less frequently
once I started to fully process the trauma of my past,
practice mindfulness in the present
and create more realistic expectations for my future.
So today, I've shared with you my story
in order to shed more light on binge eating disorder.
For any of you out there listening who are struggling from BED in hiding,
I encourage you to speak up.
I want you to know that your struggles are valid.
And for those of you who, during this talk, realize
that there's a name for the behaviors you've been hiding,
I encourage you to seek help.
I want you to know that you are not alone even though you may feel that way.
And for the rest of you,
I encourage you to be a supportive friend or family member
if you learn that a person you love suffers from BED.
I hope everyone will consider being patient and kind
with those people you see
who seem to be struggling with their relationship to food.
Thank you.
(Applause)