Are you eating more than you should? Trapped in a constant cycle of dieting? Perpetually anxious about your weight, shape and size? U n “To understand your eating, you first have to understand d yourself. This easily-read book helps you to step back e and discover what influences your eating habits.” r Dr Ian Campbell - Founder of the National Obesity Forum and S T medical consultant on ITV’s The Biggest Loser and Fat Chance A n “This valuable book makes sense of how food and eating d may be misused and become entangled with i emotions as a way of dealing with them.” n Dr Helena Fox - Clinical psychiatrist for Channel 4’s g Supersize vs Superskinny and for the eating disorders How to eat and not unit at Capio Nightingale Hospital Y o worry about it “Highly recommended for anyone who is interested in U understanding why diets do not work and how to r move on from the pattern of emotional eating.” e Prof John McLeod - Professor of Counselling at the A University of Abertay Dundee T i n Many of us fight an ongoing battle with food. Understanding Your Eating g can help you if the way you use food bothers you and you feel it is beyond your control. Author Julia Buckroyd uses the term disordered eating rather J than eating disorders, to reach out to everyone who is distressed u and miserable about food. l i a Understanding Your Eating will help you become more aware of your feelings towards food, understand your emotional eating, and explore the B reasons behind your challenges, so that you can find other ways of u managing your day-to-day experiences. c k Julia Buckroyd is a registered psychotherapist and has been working in r the field of disordered eating for nearly 30 years. o C y over D d “““AAA rrreeeaaallllllyyy vvvaaallluuuaaabbbllleee rrreeesssooouuurrrccceee fffooorrr ttthhhooossseee tttrrryyyiiinnnggg tttooo iiimmmppprrrooovvveee ttthhheeeiiirrr rrreeelllaaatttiiiooonnnssshhhiiippp esig wwiitthh ffoooodd.. IItt ooffffeerrss iinnssiigghhtt iinn aa vveerryy ssttrraaiigghhttffoorrwwaarrdd aanndd rreeaaddaabbllee wwaayy..”” n: H UUrrssuullaa PPhhiillppoott,, oonn--ssccrreeeenn ddiieettiicciiaann ffoorr CChhaannnneell 44’’ss SSuuppeerrssiizzee VVss SSuuppeerrsskkiinnnnyy a nd aanndd sseenniioorr lleeccttuurreerr aatt LLeeeeddss MMeettrrooppoolliittaann UUnniivveerrssiittyy sD esig JJuulliiaa BBuucckkrrooyydd n.ca JULIA BUCKROYD fi rst trained and practised as an historian of 17th century Scotland at the universities of St Andrews, McMaster, Ontario, Cambridge and Oxford. In her mid-thirties she retrained fi rst as a counsellor at Birkbeck College, University of London, and then as a psychotherapist with the Guild of Psychotherapists. This training was in the fi eld of psychoanalytic counselling and psychotherapy, but she has since read widely in other counselling traditions and would now describe herself as an integrative or pluralist therapist. She values the huge development of knowledge and understanding which has exploded across the psychotherapeutic world with the development of attachment theory, the growth of neuroscience, the advances made by body therapies, the vastly increased sophistication of approaches to trauma and the advances made by cognitive therapies. Her work in the fi eld of disordered eating attempts to make use of all these infl uences. Her fi rst job as a counsellor, 1984–1989, was as Student Counsellor at London Contemporary Dance School (LCDS). It was there that she fi rst became interested in disordered eating. She then worked full time in private practice, working mostly with people with disordered eating, from 1990 until 1994. From 1994–2008 Julia Buckroyd was employed at the University of Hertfordshire (UH) where from 1999 she increasingly undertook research in the fi elds of eating disorders and obesity. In 2002 she was made Professor of Counselling. In this role she established the Obesity and Eating Disorders Research Centre at UH. Since 2008, as Emeritus Professor of Counselling, she has continued to develop these ideas and lectures and conducts workshops widely throughout the UK. Julia Buckroyd has written two programmes (with manuals) which incorporate her understanding of disordered eating. The fi rst, Weight Management for Seriously Obese People, has been developed for use in the NHS for patients with a BMI of 35 or more. Further details can be obtained from the author. The second is a programme for the general public called Understanding Your Eating which offers courses to those troubled by their eating behaviour. More can be read about this programme in the resources chapter of this book and on the website http://www. understandingyoureating.co.uk. Understanding Your Eating How to eat and not worry about it Julia Buckroyd Open University Press Open University Press McGraw-Hill Education McGraw-Hill House Shoppenhangers Road Maidenhead Berkshire England SL6 2QL email: [email protected] world wide web: www.openup.co.uk and Two Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121-2289, USA First published in Great Britain in 1989 by Macdonald Optima. Revised edition published in 1994 by Optima. Second edition revised published in 1996 by Vermilion, an imprint of Edbury Press. This edition published 2011 Copyright © Julia Buckroyd 1989, 1994, 1996, 2011 All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence from the Copyright Licensing Agency Limited. Details of such licences (for reprographic reproduction) may be obtained from the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd of Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London, EC1N 8TS. A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library ISBN-13: 978-0-335-24197-2 ISBN-10: 0-335-24197-2 eISBN: 978-0-335-24198-9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data CIP data applied for Typeset by Refi neCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk Printed in the UK at Bell & Bain Ltd., Glasgow Fictitious names of companies, products, people, characters and/or data that may be used herein (in case studies or in examples) are not intended to represent any real individual, company, product or event. Praise for this book “Symptoms of disordered eating are fantastically common. Which one of us doesn’t have a worry about weight or shape, or try to diet at some stage or another? Even if one’s symptoms don’t add up to a formal eating disorder they can still cause a lot of misery, worry and diffi culty maintaining a steady, healthy weight. This valuable book offers meaning and makes sense of how food and eating may be misused and become entangled with emotions as a way of dealing with them. The book offers up to date, specialist advice based on years of clinical practice, coupled with an outline of the research in the fi eld. The subject is enlivened for the reader by inviting them to engage in self-refl ective exercises- ‘light bulb’ moments- and identify with their own issues. Julia Buckroyd brings all this together in a highly readable and digestible book. I will recommend it to all of my clients and to many people outside my clinic.” —Dr Helena Fox - Clinical psychiatrist for Channel 4’s Supersize Vs Superskinny and for the eating disorders unit at Capio Nightingale Hospital “To understand your eating you fi rst have to understand yourself. This easily-read book helps you to step back and comfortably discover who you are and what might infl uence your eating habits. For an individual with problems eating, or for the health professional who needs to understand more, this book can open the window and shed a very bright light.” —Dr Ian Campbell - Founder of the National Obesity Forum and medical consultant on ITV’s The Biggest Loser and Fat Chance vi Praise for this book “I really enjoyed this book. It certainly mirrors my approach to help people understand where their eating diffi culties have come from. I think it will be a really valuable resource for those trying to improve their relationship with food. It offers insight in a very straightforward and readable way. I can certainly see myself recommending it to my clients.” —Ursula Philpot, on-screen dietician for Channel 4’s Supersize Vs Superskinny and senior lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan University “The question of how to develop a healthy relationship with food and eating is a major challenge for many individuals. This book is highly recommended for anyone who is interested in the meaning of food and eating, in learning why diets do not work, and in understanding what is required to move on from destructive patterns of eating. Julia Buckroyd writes in an accessible, friendly style, with many fascinating case examples from her own practice. It is essential reading for people who struggle with their use of food, for those who share their lives, and for practitioners who have professional involvement with this topic.” —Professor John McLeod, Professor of Counselling at the University of Abertay Dundee Contents About the Author i Acknowledgements xiii Preface xv Part I Introduction 3 1 Disordered Eating and the Uses of Food 13 The Problem with Food 13 The Emotional Use of Food 15 Using Food to Manage our Lives 18 How We Learn to Deal with Life 23 Caregivers Who Don’t Do It Very Well 27 The Consequences of a History of Poor Attachment 31 And So … 42 2 Thinking About Food 45 Early Experiences of Food 46 Food as Part of an Early Power Struggle 49 Women and Food – the Dilemma 52 The Role of Food in the Family 53 Current Patterns of Eating 61 Part II 3 Disordered Eating as a Response to Crisis 67 Fiona’s Story 69 Time to Mourn 70 vii viii Contents Denise’s Story 72 Food and Relationships 73 Iris’s Story 73 Responding to Unexpected Trauma 77 Eating Your Worries Away 78 4 On Being a Woman 81 Morag’s Story 81 Thin is Beautiful? 86 Fat as a Message 88 Valerie’s Story 90 Wendy’s Story 91 Mrs Brown 92 5 The Diffi culties of Growing Up 97 Your Father’s Daughter 100 Jane’s Story 102 Jade’s Story 106 Daisy’s Story 109 6 At Least I’ll Control What I Put in My Mouth 115 Felicity’s Story 115 Elisabeth’s Story 120 The Silent Signals 123 7 Mothers and Daughters 129 Monica’s Story 130 Caroline’s Story 132 Competition between Mothers and Daughters 134 The Legacy of Anger 138 The Need to Separate 139 8 Eating Your Heart Out 143 A Signal for Change 146 Angela’s Story 148 9 Eating Disorders as a Response to Sexual Abuse 159 Remembering but not Feeling 159 Carla’s Story 160 Contents ix Remembering and not Remembering 161 Philippa’s Story 161 Forgetting 163 Beverley’s Story 163 Sexual Relationships and Intimacy with Men 165 Trust and Control 168 Self-knowledge and Self-esteem 170 10 Me and My Body 177 Body Image 179 Self-concept 183 Wordless Messenger 189 11 Men and Disordered Eating 193 Eddie’s Story 194 Male Body Image 197 James’s Story 199 Matt’s Story 201 Steve’s Story 203 Part III 12 Resources 209 Finding Professional Help 209 Guidelines for the Non-professional Helper 211 Diagnosis of Eating Disorders 214 Treatment of Disordered Eating 214 Understanding Your Eating: Courses for Emotional Eaters 219 Further Reading 222 Notes 227 Index 239