Do you have eating disorders?

Do you hate the way you look? Do you hate your body? Do you believe you are ugly?  Do you believe you are fat? Do you believe you will never be thin? Do you believe that diets don’t work? Do you believe you must be thin? Do you believe that food is bad?  Do you hate your legs, thighs, hair, and teeth?

We won’t list the statistics of obesity, bulimia and anorexia here, they are too scary and too awful but you can look them up on the internet if you are interested enough. Whatever they are, they are the results of negative beliefs taken on about food when we are young!

Here’s how we get these beliefs:

“YOU MUST EAT EVERYTHING ON YOUR PLATE BEFORE  YOU CAN LEAVE THE TABLE!”

So goes the age-old threat that millions of parents have used for generations to force children to eat food they do not want and often do not need.

“EAT ALL YOUR DINNER OR YOU WON’T GET ANY DESERT!”

Another threat to coerce children to stuff their stomachs full of food, but this one adds the ‘no choice’ factor, "if you don’t eat Brussel sprouts, you don’t get ice-cream".

From the day we are born we are fed what out mothers believe we should have, whether we want or need it or not. Our life is literally in their hands and particularly in the beliefs systems our mothers hold about food.  Some mothers are fanatically fastidious about what their children eat, particularly if they are vegetarian, or have been brought up themselves with ‘different’ ideas about food.  Some mothers, having been raised on egg and chips, with no thought to the nutritional value of the meals they were given, give no thought to the nutritional value of the food they give to their own children.

“THERE ARE CHILDREN STARVING IN AFRICA WHO WOULD GIVE THEIR EYE TEETH TO HAVE WHAT YOU’RE HAVING!”

Mothers are experts on symbiotic guilt! They show us pictures of starving children or make us watch World Vision advertisements to make us feel guilty about not eating our food. If,  like us you silently said, or said out loud  (which earned you a clip around the ear)  “well put it into an envelope and send these revolting Brussel sprouts/cabbage/liver to them then!” you will know that you were compelled to eat foods that were spectacularly revolting and as an adult you still refuse to eat them because of the beliefs you still hold to be true.

Children have tiny stomach’s, they don’t need much food to fill them up, and children obviously prefer ice-cream to Brussel sprouts, chips and burgers to liver and onions, although the Brussel sprouts liver and onions are much better for us. Why is it then we force our children to eat things they do not want, or compel them to eat foods that are incredibly bad for them. It is a never ending cycle, our parents give us their belief systems and we pass them on to our children.  And because of our belief systems, anorexics and bulimics either believe they are fat or are terrified of becoming fat because their mother’s or friends might disapprove of them. They have been overwhelmed by the media into believing that being fat is disgusting and they must starve themselves to stay thin. Recently a client told us that her five year old, normal, healthy daughter came home saying she was fat!!

Children are taught by their parents and society, who look down on anyone who is different from them, to taunt, bully and look down upon others who don’t look the same as everybody else.   Children need to belong, to be accepted,  to have friends and fit in with the crowd. Because of their  innate drive to compare themselves to others, and if they have learned from their parents that being overweight is ‘bad’, they can be merciless to any other children who stands out from the crowd. In today’s prejudiced society even obscenely thin children are seen as normal.  And this is not just a weight problem. This applies to any child who is ‘not normal’ in the eyes of prejudiced children.

So these children become the ‘outsiders’, the ‘misfits’, the ‘outcasts’ and the’ rejects’. They will take on beliefs about being rejected, different, excluded and disgusting. They will begin to hate their bodies and themselves. They will judge themselves as fat, ugly and worthless and will spend the rest of their lives struggling with weight and self-esteem issues.  Overweight children become addicted to fatty or sugar laden foods from a very young age. They grow to believe they are fat and that they can do nothing about it. Food is their comfort and fat is their defence against the criticism and bullying they endure. Anorexics also believe they are fat and food is their enemy.

Dieting and counselling does not help, it might be a short term solution, a band-aid, but it rarely works permanently. We need to eliminate the negative beliefs that cause us to eat too much or eat too little  in order to rebuild our self-esteem and self-confidence , and then the feelings of emptiness and not belonging disappear forever.

No weight-loss programme or counselling can do what removing negative beliefs can do.