How do folks who work in food recover from eating disorders?
Content warning for eating disorders and mentions of suicide.
Recently Sod Campbell Tobin has been eating ice cream for breakfast. Either that or a Klondike bar.
“It’s enough to get me up, get me going,” they said. “It’s what I like, it puts me in a good mood starting my day.”
Even having breakfast is a big step for Sod, 23 – a step towards healing from their eating disorder.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, they had been bouncing from job to job – working at a grocery store, a poké bar, a gas station, a Cook Out. There was always too much to do, always pizza dough to make or a customer to serve. Their schedule allowed them to ignore their hunger pangs. They only ate what they made from scratch, and on a tight budget, it was easy to rationalize not eating as a cost-cutting and time-saving move.
As their stomach twisted they would focus on the next task and push cravings further and further down. “It was a very jam packed life and food just wasn’t really a concern,” they said.
Sod moved to Wilmington, North Carolina in May 2019, working at a piercing shop and moonlighting as a dishwasher. They’d been living with their partner, Wes Emerson Glenn, since September when the lockdowns began.
A few months into lockdown the effects of their eating disorder caught up to them. “I would try to go on a walk and have to cut it very, very short and sit down until I could catch my breath,” they said. They couldn’t pretend to be okay any longer. “I’m not sure if I said, ‘I’m scared’ or Wes said, ‘I’m worried.’”
Even with money and time to cook and eat – thanks to stimulus and unemployment checks – they were refusing to feed themself.
“I don’t feel like the world is made for [trans] people like you and me,” Sod told Wes. The unfriendly climate in the South often triggered their dysphoria: They didn’t want to feed a body they weren’t happy in. “Food wasn’t a priority for me because living wasn’t a priority,” Sod said. “It was just a really slow, drawn out suicide attempt.”
“There is a big risk with suicide among basically any eating disorder,” said Dr. Lacie Parker, a psychotherapist focused on eating and body image for those who identify as LGBTQIA+. “The eating disorder is not the actual problem 99 percent of the time. It’s a side effect of what is actually going on.”
Low self-esteem, depression, and trauma can all contribute to disordered eating and suicidality. The trauma can be a specific event or just the daily stress of being queer or trans in a hetero- and cis-normative society, according to Dr. Parker. She added that trans people are constantly receiving the message that their identity isn’t valid or they’re not good enough.
Growing up in our society, “it’s impossible to escape the bombardment of what our bodies are supposed to look like,” she said.
Social pressures are magnified for those who are marginalized, especially for queer and trans folks. “We’re not allowed to take up space,” Dr. Parker said. “If I’m not feeding myself then I can feed others, so it’s another form of self-sacrificing, of putting your needs last in order to meet everybody else’s needs first.”
But human bodies can’t survive without adequate calories, so restriction often leads to obsession and binging.
In 1944, 36 men took part in the Minnesota Starvation Experiment. The researchers noted that as the participants starved they became obsessed with food. According to Duke Health’s Center for Eating Disorders, “food and eating became focal points in conversations, reading, dreams, and even daydreams.” The men read cookbooks, collected recipes, and, once the experiment was over, three became chefs and one went into agriculture.
“When we deprive ourselves of food our natural instincts kick in because our biology is trying to save us,” said Dr. Parker. “We don’t know when our next meal is going to be, our calorie intake isn’t what our body requires, so our mind tries to help us by becoming preoccupied with food.” Working in food is a way to feed that preoccupation.
Denying yourself food leads to the binge-restrict pendulum. The further you pull the pendulum toward restricting the further you swing towards binging when your body finally forces you to eat. “Your body cannot stay in restriction mode forever,” said Dr. Parker. “That’s not what your body is designed to do, so your body protects you.”
Denial can lead to a cycle of guilt over binging and attempting to restrict further, so the pendulum doesn’t stop swinging.
Sod had been restricting their food intake since they were seven or eight. “I would have periods of intentional restriction and then one or two nights in a row I would binge my brains out,” they said. “Then I’d eat what was put on the table in front of me and a couple of months would pass of eating normally and that restriction and binge would start again.”
A few years at a rigorous public boarding high school didn’t help. They played club ultimate frisbee and shifted into orthorexia, a fixation on eating healthy foods in a way that becomes unhealthy. Their mindset became, “I am going to be high protein, plant-based and exercise my fucking guts out every single day.”
Sod participated in a two-week course during their junior year of high school called Farm to Fork. They visited local farms around Durham, North Carolina, where they learned about sustainable agriculture and natural pest controls and visited restaurants that sourced their food from those farms. Then the students plotted out the best way to cultivate a field across the street from their school.
They decided to dedicate their life to food. They studied agricultural engineering in college at North Carolina State and bounced around different food jobs. The hours of work, school and frisbee practice provided easy excuses to ignore their body’s signals.
There was always something to do that they could prioritize. “There’s a drive-thru line 20 people long, I’ve got eight hours of homework to do after this and I hope I wake up in time for Spanish,” they said.
But constantly pushing themself with no nourishment was unsustainable. They often overslept and failed Spanish their first semester. They had to repay their scholarship grants, which required passing grades. Their family couldn’t afford to help with the more than $5,000 they owed, so in the second semester they found more jobs in food and worked more hours while trying not to fail again.
Despite the extra hours, Sod couldn’t pay back their grant, couldn’t re-enroll the following fall and ultimately had to move home the day after Christmas 2018.
While working in a gas station kitchen they developed their “kitchen tactics.” They’d tell themself: “If I eat one chicken nugget, that’s good for my shift.” It didn’t matter that a shift was 10 hours because at the end, at least they could say, “I ate a chicken nugget.” Sometimes that singular nugget would be supplemented by some scoops of cookie dough from the freezer, an indulgence.
This cycle likely would have continued if, during Sod’s mental breakdown, Wes hadn’t said, “You want to grow old with me, right? Then you have to grow old.”
So, Sod looked into treatment.
“I pretty much Googled ‘eating disorder treatment near me’ and the first clinic that popped up is the one I am still in counseling with today,” they said. “I love them to death.”
“The ultimate goal of recovery is to have a really good intuitive relationship with food,” said Dr. Parker.
The patient’s intuition needs to be bolstered by supportive voices around them, she said.
“A lot of dietitians are unfortunately still steeped in diet culture and will tell you, ‘you can gain weight just not too much,’” Dr. Parker said, adding that that mindset could encourage restricting again. “It’s very counterproductive to tell someone in recovery, ‘okay yes you can gain weight but just not too much.’”
That is why Dr. Parker works with anti-diet dietitians, those who don’t subscribe to diet culture. “Wherever you end up on the weight spectrum that’s okay,” said Dr. Parker. “As long as you are meeting your body’s needs your body will fall wherever it’s supposed to be on that spectrum.”
In treatment Sod has unpacked their fatphobia, discussed why they don’t feel worthy of living and had conversations about how the vast majority of a person’s calories are used to just keep them alive.
They used to keep a restriction journal, tracking how little they ate every day. They’ve pivoted their journal practice into a bit of a science experiment in intuitive eating. The hypothesis they’re testing is: “Do I feel better for longer when I eat certain foods versus others?” They’ve found that sugar in the morning feels good and so that’s what they eat.
They realized that being socialized as a girl growing up made them want to be small, easy to relate to, easy to work with. They now prioritize setting boundaries and listening to their body.
They’re training to manage a location of a local pizza chain. Before taking the job they told their boss, “I need a chair somewhere, not in the kitchen, somewhere where I’m not looking at coworkers or customers, where I won’t be interrupted,” they said. “I need a chair where I can sit down and eat.”
So, Sod sits and eats. They taste their food, listen to their own chewing and feel connected with the world around them.
“This is from motherfucking earth. And now I’m eating it.”
More on eating disorder recovery: Healing in the Heart of Their Kitchen