Counseling Services

Eating Disorders

While fixating on one’s body image has, for many, become an accepted cultural value, an obsession over one’s appearance and image is an indication of deeper issues. When a fixation with one’s body image becomes a health threatening compulsion, professional help is a must. Don’t wait until it gets worse.

Eating Disorders are life-threatening illnesses that involve an obsessive focus on food, dieting, and body image. They include anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder. Because Eating Disorders are complex processes that involve physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional components, simple surface solutions to merely curb unwanted behaviors cannot effect the lasting change that is needed. It is essential that a person struggling with an Eating Disorder get help from a mental health professional specializing in Eating Disorders.

The best way to understand Eating Disorders is to see them as addictions. However, they are a unique addiction because, in this case, the body is utterly dependent on the substance that’s being abused (i.e. food). If gone unchecked, this can damage the body’s biological makeup, and has even lead to fatalities. So, in addition to dealing with the emotional and spiritual components of an eating disorder, your counselor at Grace Clinic can make the appropriate referrals to physicians, nutritionists, and other outpatient resources.

"Today’s woman is a round peg trying desperately to fit into a square hole in order to survive and flourish. How does she do this? By trying to shape her body into a more angular, masculine form, one that has zero fat to round off its edges."

- Anita Johnston

Counseling Services

Eating Disorders

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