Eating or body image-related challenges What unique biases or stigmas may relate to this lived experience? What is the nature of the potential biases or stigmas? • Many body-shaming messages often perpetuated through media, communities, and by loved ones result in people navigating eating or body image-related challenges feeling isolated and at fault for their struggles. • There is an assumption that a certain diagnosis outlines both the nature of eating or body-image related challenges and what would be helpful. In fact, many with such challenges who are diagnosed with an eating disorder either have multiple diagnoses or feel that the diagnosis is insufficient to describe their experiences and what would be helpful. • Oftentimes, people with these challenges are told to just eat (or not eat), while for many, they find their relationship with nourishment and their bodies to also be impacted by traumas they may have faced. • Many people assume that eating disorders only affect young women, white people, or people from a relatively privileged economic class. These are myths based on misinformation from media and popular cultural portrayals. What can go wrong through not challenging or addressing our potential biases? What are the negative impacts on people? • Often people seeking support for these challenges are isolated or cut off from supportive community and relationships. • Though women are more likely to be diagnosed with an eating disorder and gain access to treatment, many factors create bias in who gets support around eating or body image-related challenges. • Assumptions people can make, such as all eating disorders mean someone is unusually thin or that they constantly throw up their food, erases the very real challenges many others face relating to food and body image that may not result in significant weight loss or more obvious signs of struggle. • Many barriers exist regarding access to support around these challenges. Most supports exist only in the medical model. Treatment options are often limited to intensive outpatient, residential, or inpatient care. Many insurance companies refuse to cover expensive residential programs. Additionally, many mental health clinicians will not see someone with eating concerns until completion of such a program. Many end up without any support; others are hospitalized and endure forced tube feeding and coercive strategies for meal plan compliance.
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