World is full of all shapes and sizes!
Lifestyle - Peer pressure and the world of social media celebrities have been blamed in many quarters for the numbers seeking help with eating disorders and issues around body image – but as more people look for support, reporter KATHERINE GANNON discovered the reality is more complex than that.
Last year 157 patients in Ireland were admitted to psychiatric units and hospitals for eating disorders, according to the Irish Hospital Admissions Report – and of the 157 total, 154 were female. The simple correlation to make is that this is due to an obsession with body image, fuelled by the onslaught of social media – and indeed a 2007 study of 114 female college students would prove that point.
It found that those exposed to more fashion or beauty magazines were more dissatisfied with their overall appearance and exhibited a higher risk of eating disorder tendencies.
But Nutritional Therapist and Body Image coach Linn Thorstensson says there are a number of factors that can affect body image.
“There is no denying the messages from the media – social media and marketing contribute to low body image and then there is general diet culture that tells us we need to look a certain way to be happy,” she says.
Linn’s experience is that people start changing their body image and shape if they are going through an uncomfortable period in their life, as they feel this is the only thing they can control.
“We use our bodies as the thing to blame when something else is off in our lives, as the diet industry teaches you that if you make your body look a certain way everything will be alright,” she explains.
Moycullen mum Aisling Feeney knows how this pattern of behaviour can set in at any stage; she recognised that she needed to change her life around when her unhealthy eating habits left her feeling depressed.
“After my second child was born, I felt so down at the realisation that my unhealthy eating habits had got out of control, I wanted to make a change for myself,” she says.
Aisling admits that even though she was not forcing herself to be sick, which is a common trait of bulimia, she still felt she had an eating disorder.
“At one point I asked my doctor if I had an eating disorder, because I would starve myself all morning and binge on unhealthy food in the evening,” she says.
Aisling decided it was time for a change – and that reinvention of her lifestyle has now led her to help others on the same path through her work as a wellness coach, through Weight Watchers in Moycullen.
She sees the pressure that comes from social media and she’s not a fan – but fellow Galwegian Sharon Dooley expands her concern about issues to the media in general.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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