Trying to avoid the “Freshman 15”? Read this first. TL;DR The “Freshman 15” is more myth than reality. Research doesn’t support that most college students gain fifteen pounds, and the fear surrounding it does far more harm than the weight gain itself ever could. What often goes unmentioned is that some weight gain during the …
Health professionals often recommend bariatric surgery for patients with larger bodies. A large body size, referred to in the medical world as “obesity,”—a term we will not use unless citing medical data— is not the same as an eating disorder. Yet, there is an intersection. A considerable number of people considering bariatric surgery may have …
Shopping While Fat–And Recovering by Sharon Maxwell, Practice Manager Growing up, I loved the concept of shopping. But as a fat person, I rarely actually enjoyed it. It wasn’t that I didn’t like shopping or finding new things. However, an invitation to go shopping with friends meant that the message that my body was intrinsically …
Recovering into a Bigger Body Is Not Wrong Recovering from an eating disorder in a society focused on thinness can be hard to do on its own. It is even more difficult when you recover into a body that does not conform to the thin ideal. If you are in a bigger body and have …
Diverse Instagram Accounts Can Support Recovery by SJ Thompson Belmonte, Resilient Fat Goddex and Lauren Muhlheim, Eating Disorder Therapy LA It’s time to curate your feed to have a more diverse social media feed. “Body positivity can’t be just about thin, straight, cisgendered, white women who became comfortable with an additional ten pounds on their …
By Carolyn Comas, LCSW, CEDS-S, Clinical Supervisor Can you horseback ride if you are fat? Navigating the world in a fat body can be frustrating and may feel disheartening. There are, unfortunately, some activities and spaces that do not accommodate people in large bodies. When someone in a big body encounters spaces that do …
“What is Weight-Inclusive Cognitive Behavioral Therapy CBT-WI? Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy is the most effective approach for treating adults with eating disorders, including bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder. The most recent, commonly taught, and implemented version is an “enhanced” protocol, CBT-E (Fairburn, Christopher G., 2008). Unfortunately, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for eating disorders is not always …
Eating disorders are not only about body image. Nor have they only recently arisen in response to societal pressures to be thin. In fact, eating disorders date back to at least the 13th and 14th centuries, when it was observed that women were fasting to demonstrate religious devotion. However, today eating disorders do occur in …
By Carolyn Comas, LCSW, CEDS-S Figure Skating in a Larger Body For a long time, I was embarrassed to tell people that I was a figure skater. I was afraid that someone would look at me and laugh at the idea that someone like me skated. I felt this way because I am in a …
Providers With Weight Stigma “People are concerned about the fact that I’m a therapist and have an eating disorder, and I’m like, ‘You’re concerned about me? I’m concerned about our entire fucking field.’” — Shira Rose, FoodPsych with Christy Harrison This quote has generated a lot of reactions. In this podcast, Shira—who lives in a …