Disordered Eating & Body Dysmorphia Transcript
Curt (00:01.604)
Good morning, Preeti. How are you?
Preeti from Westport, CT(00:03.959)
Good morning, Curt, how are you?
Curt (00:05.752)
I'm excellent. I wanted to talk today about an interesting subject that came up because we're in summertime and there's people in bathing suits and some people wearing shawls and coverings over their bathing suits and it made me think about body shaming and as a society why some people feel comfortable with their shirt off whether it be male or female, you know, going in a pool or beach and then I know you had some thoughts on kind of how body shaming got there maybe eating disorders and what kind of role these two kind of co -mingle with each other. So what's your opinion on body shaming bodies that are people should feel how they feel about their body and how does that play a role with maybe eating disorders and what's going on in America?
Preeti (00:52.63)
Yeah. So one of the reasons that I started MAYA Self -Worth, One of the reasons I started MAYA Self -Worth for Life was because my own experience as a young girl, and in observing the girls, in observing the children, the female children of my friends, come into, girls especially come into this world, confident, sassy, funny, just ready to take it all on. And by about the age of eight, all of that is kind of beaten out of us and we feel inadequate. We don't feel beautiful. We put a lot of value on our outward appearance. And these are often messages that are reinforced by our moms because they're the messages that they are also getting and that they've with since they were very young.
And they can be reinforced by our dads as well. And I wanted to, I wanted to put girls through a program that would help them recapture that confidence, that sense of self, that intrinsic value that we each have. And then of course, you and I were talking and realized that I didn't want to limit that to just girls because boys are very much a part of this conversation as well. And boys deal with their own.
Issues with body shaming, what it means to be masculine. So in my own experience, I have dealt with two extremes of disordered eating, both extreme food restriction, which is where you're eating very, very small amount in a day. And in fact, the less you eat, the higher you feel. And it is an actual high. There's a dopamine release that comes with that.
And there's sort of a patting yourself on the back and a very, very sad sense that you're doing the right thing and that by eating well or being hungry and satisfying your hunger that you're bad in some way. The other side of that is binge eating. And so I veered between these two, extreme food restriction, getting high from eating small, small amounts of food. And I'm talking about 200-300
Preeti (03:19.234)
calories in a day. And I'm 5 '8". That is way too few calories for anyone over the age of, I don't know, two. And then in binge eating, it's when I get sort of obsessive and compulsive about food and I can't stop thinking about food and I can't stop thinking about my next meal and I'm planning my next meal and I'm eating when I'm not hungry. None of this is for nourishment. None of it is for health. None of it is for sustenance.
This is all emotional development, right? And there's a lot of messaging out there that, you know, we're supposed to be able to eat a lot and be really thin. And for most of us, that is not possible. That is not the case.
Curt (04:04.272)
For the girls that are going through MAYA and the teens you've worked with so far, how big of a role is, say, body image and or eating disorders? in the sample size at MAYA for girls? And how do you kind of when that element comes up, like when that question comes
Preeti (04:22.144)
Right, It's huge. It's just as big for our girls as it is nationally and internationally. And what we do is we don't shy away from the topic. We talk about it very openly. We talk about it with parents. We talk about what to look for, signs that your son or daughter has an eating disorder. And then we talk openly
ways to combat it, ways to approach your child, and resources. We are not a mental health program and we're not an eating disorder program. We are a self -esteem program. We are sort of the next line of defense. And sometimes we're able to uncover some of these issues for our clients. And then my recommendation is that they do get medical help, that they talk to their family pediatrician or their family physician, and that they find therapy, they find mental health resources, there is inpatient services that are available, there are outpatient services, and All of this is really scary to navigate. So we try to give families a place where they can have these conversations if they're not comfortable, IF if parents are not comfortable yet talking to their kids about it, they can be comfortable talking to us about it and we'll help them navigate it. When
when a client, When a young person has this conversation with us and talks about, they don't really say, I'm not eating enough or I'm eating too much. Generally what they talk about is how they feel and being listening and being on the lookout for how these kids are dealing with their stress. Are they using food to deal with their stress? I talk really candidly about my struggles with all of these things because I want destigmatize it. There is no shame in any of this. It's nobody's fault. It's certainly not the young person's fault. And, you know, if I think about some of the conversations I've had with my mom over the years, my mom has also, she was a young person one day. She was a young person. She was a young person once. She was a young person once.
Preeti (06:42.634)
And she was subjected to the same kinds of scrutiny and grew up in a society where being really thin was really important. And I have a lot of compassion for her, but she transferred some of her fears to me unwittingly, did not do that on purpose whatsoever. I think she was trying to warn me and caution me, and I think she was trying to prevent me from following in her footsteps.
What it also did though was make me feel a sense that being overweight in any way was a really bad thing and that people would make fun of you for it and that there was something wrong with you. I've struggled with my weight my whole life and this is the first time I'm 46. It's the first time that I'm feeling comfortable in my skin. and I am a lot thinner now than I've been in the past, but I'm also a little bit bigger now than I've been in the past because
For me, A lot of this is just working on my self -esteem, working on my self -worth, validating myself, not needing to look like the girls look in a magazine, not needing to look like actors do on TV. And I think with the rise of social media and the pervasiveness of these images, it is really, really hard for young people, especially for our girls to not want to compare themselves.
And the fact is, is that social media is highly curated. I know that I don't put any photos of us on social media that I don't like. I definitely, you know, I've worked on the angles for this so that we don't see like all my chin. Like I want to put my chest forward, right? The height, the height, like we do a whole thing before we start recording that Curt's very patient with me about.
Curt (08:25.112)
It was high. Keep the camera up.
Preeti (08:33.934)
but I'm, you know, that, that's still, that's still me. That's still the pain and, and, and that's actually a really important thing to remember. There is so much pain. I know that I had gobs and gobs of self -loathing. Nobody set out to make me feel this way. Marketing people and, and products and the modeling agents, like nobody is setting out to hurt us, but we are hurting.
young people. And, you know, one of the things that we do at MAYA is, is try to instill a sense of confidence and self -worth in people so that they can go out there and, and, and, and fight these battles and not let it get to them.
Curt (09:20.442)
What would you say if someone is ashamed of their body and that could be embarrassed in public, you know, if it's a male wearing the shirt on in the pool or a female wearing the wrap, where does it start? Or what would you say is like some good things to think about if you're ashamed of how you look or your body image that you have of yourself.
Preeti (09:39.298)
You just brought me back being like eight, 10, 14 years old and my body changing and being a little chubby. And honestly, I thought I was disgusting. I wasn't. I see photos of myself now and it was such a skewed perspective. It was not based in reality. I think that's another thing that's really important is that oftentimes this is not about what's actually happening. This is mental health issues. These incredibly persistent unhealthy ways of perceiving ourselves and they're not necessarily true. And that's the work that can be done in therapy and that can be done with these other disordered eating resources. What was your original question?
Curt (10:24.762)
What should someone do if they're, you know, they don't like how they look, they feel disgusted by how their body looks when they look in the mirror.
Preeti (10:33.107)
So it's so sad to me. And I have a photo of myself when I was eight years old. I'm wearing in a purple and pink and gold Indian outfit. It's my mother's favorite photo of me. And I look like a really cute eight -year -old girl who's frankly terrified of having her photo taken. And I remember that feeling of my mom sitting me in this very 80s, brown tweed chair
taking my photo and telling me how beautiful I was. And I was The whole time thinking, why is she lying? I know I'm not beautiful. I know I'm disgusting. I don't actually really even know where that all came from, but I'm so certain and I can actually close my eyes and go back to that feeling. That is who I hurt when I think terrible things about myself, when I punish myself for indulging in a dessert.
When I tell myself that I'm too fat, when I tell myself that I'm no good, that is who I'm hurting. And so what I've done is actually I've taken that photo and I've put it places that I can see it's on the vanity in my bedroom. So when I do my makeup, I'm looking at that. I blew it up and put it in my bathroom. I have to walk by it every time I use the bathroom. And for me, It's a reminder that it is up to me to take care of that little girl, and to make her feel loved and wanted and secure and safe. And so that she knows that there is nothing wrong with her and that being healthy means eating food. Being healthy means moving your body and not being afraid to do that in public, not being afraid to go to a gym and exercise, not being afraid to wear a bathing suit and enjoy your summer vacation.
I can't even begin to tell you the number of times that I sat it out, that I did not participate in life because I was so ashamed of who I was. And none of it was true. I was not some monster. I was not some hideous thing. I was just a little girl. I was terrified of being made fun of. And I think that's the last thing is that we need to teach our children to be loving and supportive to one another. You said something.
Preeti (12:51.394)
A couple weeks ago and it was in reference of one of your kids was at camp and you said something about, was it like sitting next to people at lunch? And it was such a loving thing. Can you tell us a little bit about what that was?
Curt (13:07.54)
Yeah, So he was at a camp where none of the kids would have really known each other. It was a sleepaway basketball camp. And I said, He had friends. He was going with a couple of kids he knew. And again, I had gone back to my childhood when I went to a camp and didn't know anybody, didn't know a soul and did a sleep away. And, you know, I was the guy at the table, you know, who didn't know anybody. He like, you're sitting at the lunch table by yourself. So I made the joke. Like, you know, I started going, do you remember that was me?
But to tell them to invite whoever the alone kid is or the kid who doesn't know anybody just because you have three or four friends and you can sit with someone and talk to them. Go invite that person into your group, find out where they're from and make sure they feel like they can talk to somebody or even sit down. It's awkward to sit at a meal even for an adult alone at the bar or restaurant. So just remembering what I went through being the kid without any friends at my first sleepaway camp and didn't know anybody. And I guess you'd call
breaking generational trauma in a good way and transference, but we made a joke about it and he's good about that. So there you go. We changed the course of history just right there.
Preeti (14:11.542)
Yeah, I mean, I mean, that's so great. And I think the thing to remember if you're a young person watching this, if you're the parent of a young person, is that when we become adults, there's not a single one of us who doesn't have the, I was alone in the lunchroom and no one wanted to sit next to me story. We all do. The most popular kid in school has that story. The beauty queen has that story. The captain of the football team, the head of the debate club. Everybody has that story. They're At some point.
We felt lonely, we felt insecure, we felt less than. And the thing that we can teach our kids is to look out for those kids and love them and extend yourself to them and role model for your peers. No one's ever gonna look at you and say, wow, you're just too nice to everybody. I think that especially if you're a kid who is⁓
very well adjusted in school and who has a lot of friends. It's always really great to be able to extend a hand to somebody who doesn't have that. You're changing somebody's life. You're definitely changing their day, but you could also be changing their life. At the end of the day, as adults, we were all children once. And we have that pain. We carry the pain that we experienced in childhood. We do that inner child
in therapy and in other mental health spaces. And we learn to heal. We learn to parent ourselves the way that our parents didn't know to do, that they probably would have done in a heartbeat had they known that that would have been the thing to help us heal. But we get to do that to ourselves now. And what we're able to do is pass that information on to our children. So instead of passing on our insecurities and our fears,
we can pass on the healthy ways that we cope with our insecurities and our fears. And it's not that we will never have them. I still have them now, but I know how to deal with them and I know how to talk about them. And I've surrounded myself with people who love me anyway, you know, and who don't judge me.
Curt (16:20.816)
then how would a parent or a teen who maybe has body issues or an eating disorder and wanted to talk to you or myself, how would they get in touch with us?
Preeti (16:30.546)
Well, can find us on social media. Our handle is at @maya4lifeofficial. And you can also find us at our website, maya4life.com, maya4life.com.
Curt (16:43.184)
Sounds good, thank you, Preeti.
Preeti (16:44.641)
Thanks so much, Curt. Good talk.
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