The eating patterns of the people in this country have been placed under the spotlight recently.  With news of soaring obesity levels, and concerns about the health of the nation, a government white paper released giving advice on improving our diet and lifestyles, and continuing media focus on body image and appearance issues, it is hard not to be aware of the pressure on everyone about the way we look.

Problems around what we eat have become commonplace.  Whilst we live in a culture increasingly obsessed by healthy eating and diets, the truth is that most people are failing in their attempt to gain control of their weight.  Millions of people in this country alone (one study estimates over 13 million) are trapped in a cycle of permanent dieting, and the depression and psychological problems that accompany it.  The diets are not working.  One third of people who diet actually end up putting on more weight rather than losing it and only one in a hundred actually lose the weight they hoped to.  The only group of people gaining from our obsession over weight is the diet industry, making millions from the suffering of so many.

Clinical problems with eating are also becoming more common.  Eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder are now issues that need to be addressed by all GPs, and studies suggest that the average GP will have several people on his/her list who are struggling with an eating disorder.  Younger children, some as young as 8 or 9, are becoming the early victims of our obsession with our weight, as they misunderstand the rules they hear, and fall under the tempting spell of trying to control their diet to win the things they so long for:  confidence, popularity and happiness.  For most of our teenage girls, the majority of women, and for many men, feeling bad about the way they look has become part of normal life.  90% of women say they do not like their body, with over half going as far as to say that they hate it.  Over a quarter say they worry about their body every day.  90% of teenage girls admit that they hate their body and want to lose a lot of weight – over half of them wishing they could drop over a stone, even though they are not overweight at all.  Their aims are extreme and represent weights that would be very unhealthy, well within the boundaries of anorexia, and unachievable without some extreme control and restriction of their diet.  These pressures are hitting teenagers younger and younger, with 2/3 of under 13s already having been on a diet.

Alongside the issues of weight and healthy eating, other issues are prevalent in our society and are issues we regularly encounter at ABC. Self harm is a serious problem, particularly amongst young people, and as the Uk continues to have the highest rates of self-harm in Europe, increasing numbers of those who contact us about eating problems also need support and information about self-harm.  Wider issues such as stress, depression, loneliness and struggles with low self-esteem fuel eating problems, with 60% of teenage girls and around ¼ of adults believing they would be happier if they were thinner.  As adult responsibilities and pressures are taken on younger and younger, many children find themselves ill-equipped to cope with them, and therefore are vulnerable to the lie that losing weight might make them feel happier and more in control.

Eating problems are about more than just food.  They begin when someone starts to believe that their life would be different were they thinner.  Their weight, size and shape become a scapegoat for all that they struggle with in their life and self-hatred is not far behind.  They resolve to lose weight, generally unable to see their real shape as many do not really need to lose any at all.  Strict rules about what to eat (or not to eat) are made.  Some are successful in restricting their eating, and sometimes exercising fanatically, and become caught up in the intoxicating high they get as they see themselves losing weight.  But as their life does not improve and the problems they suffer do not go away they resolve to lose more weight.  It becomes a mirage:  something they see but can never quite get to.  They think ‘if only I could lose another few pounds it would all be ok’, but each time they achieve their aim, they make a new resolve to lose yet more weight.  For others, the strict diet is doomed to fail.  Their starving bodies demanding food lead them to crave the very things they feel they should not eat.  Eventually that control breaks down and they start to binge eat.  Terrified of putting on weight they try to find something they can do to get rid of what they have eaten – so they exercise, make themselves sick or abuse diet pills or laxatives.  This however simply makes the binging worse and soon a vicious cycle has built up.  Still more react to their binging by developing a new resolve.  They try the latest diet, eating plan or exercise regime in a hope that it will stop their binge eating.  But they continue to set themselves unrealistic goals, and therefore are doomed to fail.

ABC wishes to teach society that this is not the way things need to be.  We were not created to live a life of despising and fighting against our bodies, and obsessive behaviour around food is not a ‘normal’ part of life.  We aim to take the message of truth that there is another way to live life, a way free from the prison of eating and food distress.  We have a particular focus on the Christian world, as one where the Truth of the Bible is well known, but often not experienced.  It is our aim to focus not just on treating problems when they occur, but also on preventing problems that have not yet developed.  We know that it is possible to recover fully from eating disorders, and from other kinds of eating distress.  It is possible to live a life free of dieting and to feel happy with the body that God gave you!  The many recovered sufferers working with ABC are evidence of that.  Our aim is to help those who are trapped in addictive cycles around food, weight and dieting to find freedom.  We also understand the pain and suffering that eating distress brings to those who are close to the sufferer.  We seek to offer support to parents, friends and professional carers also.  Whatever the journey taken, we aim to be able to walk alongside, offering a personal and flexible approach to help make full recovery a reality.