Let’s talk ultra processed foods from an eating disorder lived experience perspective.
I’ve recently heard talk about how the vast majority of binge foods for people with an eating disorder are ultra processed foods, and that they may be to blame for the rise in eating disorder presentation.
Now I can’t comment on the statistics, but I can comment from my own experience. UPF were often my go to binge foods. Why?
1. Because I demonised and restricted them, so of course I obsessed over them, craved them. My brain was consumed by these hints I could not have. But also:
2. Because they were easy, quick, and required no preparation. When the urge to binge takes over, there’s no time to cook a three course meal from scratch. You binge on what’s there, what you can pick up and consume as quickly as possible.
Now here’s where the theory falls apart for me personally. There have been times in my life when I had no or limited access to UPF. When my ED developed I had no or limited access to UPF. It was around 1980, My parents couldn’t afford newly emerging convenience food.
In adulthood, I’ve lived in places where UPF weren’t a thing. Yet I still binged. I just binged on what was available. Whatever was in the fridge, pantry, that I could pick up and consume as quickly as possible. Whole loaves of sourdough. Nuts and dried fruits. Leftovers.
Because bingeing is in response to restriction. There’s no doubt about that.
But Binge Eating Disorder is a mental illness, maybe sometimes a coping mechanism. And ultimately when I was distressed, or feeling strong emotions, or felt unheard, it didn’t matter what I binged on.
When I had that compulsion to binge, I had to binge. I had to squash those feelings down with something, anything. It didn’t really matter what. All that mattered was that I ate and ate until I was in physical pain, and physical pain blocked out the psychological pain.
In my mind, in my personal experience, this noise about UPF is missing the point.
Eating disorders are mental illnesses. Yet society sees them through a diet culture, weight stigma lens.
Enough with the theories. Start listening to lived experience. And learn from it.
This post was originally published as a thread on X. You can find me there as @bed_blog, and on Instagram as @thebedpostblog.