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By Kaela Scott

The holidays, while a beautiful time for many, can be a really big challenge for individuals who struggle with an eating disorder. Not only is food a part of just about every event that takes place but it seems to creep into our regular day to day in ways that aren’t typical (like the never end food baskets brought to the office). All this food can make even those who don't struggle feel overwhelmed.

If you have a loved one who is struggling, here are a few tips I recommend to make the holidays feel less triggering and more Merry. 

The holidays really are a magical time of year and the more we can support those who struggle, the greater the likelihood of them being able to experience the holidays in a positive way. Check in with your loved one to devise a healthy and supportive plan to help them feel as successful as possible. 

Do you have tricks that work for you during the holidays? Write them in the comment section below. 


Kaela Scott is a Registered Clinical Counsellor who specializes in Eating Disorders. She runs her own private practice and works with the Looking Glass Foundation in both their summer camp and their Hand In Hand Program. She has been passionate about working with eating disorders since freeing herself from her own struggle and realizing what it is like to be happy and well. When she isn’t working, you can find Kaela either cozying up with a cup of tea and her friends or up in the mountains going for a hike. 

By Ljudmila Petrovic

The first time I read something by Roxane Gay, it was (like many people) her best-selling essay collection, Bad Feminist. Gay had brought us An Untamed State, a novel of sexual violence, race, and privilege. She brought us a series of short stories in Difficult Women. She then skyrocketed to the mainstream with Bad Feminist, a series of biting and intelligent essays exploring what it means to be a woman and a feminist.

But now what Roxane Gay brings us is Hunger, a memoir so beautifully written that you won’t want to put it down, but so raw and painful that you’ll have to. Having read her other work and knowing what Hunger was about, I thought I was prepared for what was in store in the pages before me. But I wasn’t.

Gay writes about unimaginable sexual trauma that she experienced early in her life, how she began to embody her trauma through eating, how she navigates a world that is simply not accepting of her body. I have read countless memoirs and books about eating disorders over the years, but most of them centered on starvation, on thinness as both the initial goal and the inevitable cage. When people talk about eating disorders, they too often talk about anorexia or sometimes bulimia. They talk about starvation and wasting away. They talk about disappearing and restriction. This attitude trickles from the tabloids and books and the inexperienced layperson talking about someone’s diet “going too far.” It occurs at the level of health professionals, of highly educated and trained people. It happens within communities that are focused on eating disorder recovery. To believe that the weight of an individual is in any way an indication of how much they are suffering or how sick they are is dangerous. And Roxane Gay drives that point home with Hunger.

Gay starts the book by warning the reader that it is “not a story of triumph, not a book that will offer motivation.” “Mine is not a success story,” she writes. “It is simply a true story.” Gay is hard on herself here and throughout the book. She is right that it is not a motivational book in the sense that it does not follow the classical narrative that is expected of her. But what Gay writes about, what she makes you feel, are the conversations that are left out. She does not shy away from writing about the shame or her own struggles, but ultimately Gay owns her story and her body. “If I must share my story, I want to do so on my terms, without the attention that inevitably follows,” she writes.  “I do not want pity or appreciation or advice. I am not brave or heroic. I am not strong. I am not special. I am one woman who has experienced something countless women have experienced.”

It is a raw book, and Gay makes herself vulnerable to the reader. It is difficult to read, and it is uncomfortable but Gay manages to shine the light on conversations that simply are not happening. She makes the reader think about what an eating disorder looks like, she makes the reader look at the world from her perspective, she demands that the reader notice the racism and fat phobia that are present in so many untold stories.

“What does it say about our culture that the desire for weight loss is considered a default feature of womanhood?”

And she describes in painful, heart wrenching, nauseatingly vivid and eloquent technicolour the connection between trauma and disordered eating, how we embody our experiences, how trauma can change a person forever, can change their bodies and their relationships with themselves and others. “I had work to do to make my body bigger and bigger and bigger and safer,” she writes. She writes about the safety of feeling invisible, the safety she had in her body and in food. In essence, the emotional aspect of the narrative is not much different than all the stories we hear from some anorectics of trauma or extreme stress sparking a need to control one’s surroundings through food and body. What is different is how Gay’s story is how it is accepted.  I cannot sum up the essence of the memoir even half as well as Gay herself:

“This is a memoir of (my) body because, more often than not, stories of bodies like mine are ignored or dismissed or derided. People see bodies like mine and make their assumptions. They think they know the why of my body. They do not.”

This book is what was missing from our discourse. I cannot imagine how difficult of a writing process Roxane Gay had to face to gift us with this, but she was wrong in some ways to call her contribution anything less than a story of triumph. Perhaps it is not triumphant in a personal sense (only Gay can decide that for herself), but it is a triumph for all those whose stories are not heard. It is a triumph for everybody who has been refused validation or support because their narrative just didn’t fit. It is a triumph for everyone who reads it and can either see parts of their own story reflected back or feel Gay’s story enough to change their way of thinking. This is a difficult book to read, I will not deny that. It is filled with trauma, pain, disordered body eating, self-loathing. No matter what your story, reading Hunger will be an extremely emotional journey. It is painful, it is searing. But it is also an important story to hear.

This body is resilient. It can endure all kinds of things. My body offers me the power of presence. My body is powerful.

 -Roxane Gay


Ljudmila graduated from SFU, where she studied psychology and gender studies. She lives in Vancouver, BC and is pursuing a career in counselling, with the goal of doing women-centred therapy. 

By Kaela Scott

Q: Recovery seems a far ways off in my mind. Do you have any tips on things I should do to make it seem possible?

Before I begin this blog I want you to know that recovery is, and always will be, worth it. You don’t have to be haunted by food and calorie counting but rather can experience true joy, love and happiness in life. If you, or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, there is hope. Reach out for help and begin your journey to wellness today.

A: If you wait around for recovery from an eating disorder to be easy, you will be waiting a long time. I often see people come in when they are struggling with an eating disorder hoping that the decision to get help was the hardest one and that going forward things will be easier. The truth is, while the decision to get help is a very significant step to take, the work has only just begun. There are a few things that are critical for people to know about recovery once they have decided to overcome their eating disorder


Kaela Scott is a Registered Clinical Counsellor who specializes in Eating Disorders. She runs her own private practice and works with the Looking Glass Foundation in both their summer camp and their Hand In Hand Program. She has been passionate about working with eating disorders since freeing herself from her own struggle and realizing what it is like to be happy and well. When she isn’t working, you can find Kaela either cozying up with a cup of tea and her friends or up in the mountains going for a hike. 

By Jenna Spowart

When I think back to my first few months in eating disorder recovery at Woodstone Residence (now the Looking Glass Residence), I recall being overwhelmed by the intensity and unfamiliarity of my new routine. Stepping into treatment felt like I was an unarmed and untrained soldier going into battle for the first time. Recovery was a world of mystery, and I was very afraid. I took my cues from other residents through conversation as we shared our victories, gratitude, and our pain. Before long, I began to notice a theme within our conversations. There were certain words that seemed to be used over and over again as the others spoke about their journeys. One of these words was ‘balance’. Many spoke about the importance of balance within the process of recovery. Although I was no expert, it seemed to me that the solution to my pain could not possibly lie within this cliché concept of balance. Still, I adopted balance into my vocabulary and pretended I could identify with it. In reality though, I longed for answers with depth, and balance seemed superficial.

In treatment I thought that finding balance meant promised success. I thought that if I could follow a specific routine, then I could excel in recovery. In the past five years, my understanding of balance has been constantly evolving. Balance looks different in every season, for every person. It is about identifying my own needs and emotions, as well as my health, responsibilities, strengths, and limitations in any given season. Balance is taking the details of life into consideration, and walking in recovery despite it all. It is indeed an important piece within recovery, but I believe we need to talk about it in such a way that facilities an understanding of its complexity.

This topic is on my heart right now, because for the past few months I have been searching for balance. I have entered into an unfamiliar season of life, and with it came crippling depression. Many days I have struggled to get myself out of bed, to work, and to be civil around other human beings. I have been angry. I am angry at everyone, about everything. When I am at home, you will most often find me curled up in bed. I have been quick to judge myself, and considered this routine to be anything but balanced. But still, the concept of balance has seemed like a topic I ought to pursue.

"Balance is taking the details of life into consideration, and walking in recovery despite it all."

In my pondering, I have come to recognize that in our society, balance wears a superficial mask. There are many idealized images of what balance is, and how it looks. Personally, I can get pulled into the trap of scrolling through my Instagram feed and concluding that if only I did more yoga, or lived an unconventional life in a cool van, then I would find balance. But we all know that’s not true. As I’ve been battling through this bout of depression, the typical question “how can I find more balance in my life?” has been replaced with “what does balance look like right now?” This question alone has transformed my outlook. Suddenly I realized, it is not impossible to discover balance amidst this fatigue and depression, it will just look a bit different than usual. I am not a failure; because there is no one right way to find balance. Instead, my job is to create the balance and structure that I need right now.

So, what does balance look like for me right now?

Balance means thinking less about perfect portions and more about making sure I have three meals a day. It doesn’t mean that every meal includes at least three food groups; it just has to include food.

Balance means accepting this temporary yet turbulent rhythm of life. It means trying my best to get along with people at work all day, and then melting into solitude when I get home. It doesn’t mean I try to be friendly with everyone, all day long.

Balance means riding the intense waves of emotion: allowing myself to laugh with friends in one moment, and excusing myself due to looming tears in the next. It doesn’t mean I maintain any one mood or emotion for a specific amount of time.

Balance means taking a few big deep breaths whenever I can manage to take them. It doesn’t mean meditating every night before bed.

Balance means writing down a few words in my journal about how I’m feeling. It doesn’t mean I write pages of poetry like I do when I’m inspired.

Balance means I’m willing to challenge the typical definition of balance itself.

Balance means we are constantly adjusting, which is not always comfortable. I heard a TED Talk a few years ago, in which the speaker proceeded to do a handstand while talking about balance to the audience. He explained that even though he was upside down on his hands, he was only able to do this because he was constantly transferring his weight from one hand to the other. He had to be aware of his feet way up in the air, the movement in his body caused by his breath, and of many other muscles in his body, all of which were playing a role in his successful handstand. He wasn’t absentmindedly balancing on his hands; his entire body was engaged.

I had a similar experience a few weeks ago when a friend and I were taking photos in a pumpkin patch. I tried to balance on one foot to pose for a photo, but it was quite difficult to do while holding a pumpkin and standing on uneven ground. It required concentration and a willingness to adjust where I stood. Balance in this situation, however temporary it may have been, still existed. The same principles are involved with balance in recovery. It is daunting; it takes practice and the building up of strength. It is a lifestyle, yet it is fleeting. It is not a one-time thing, nor is it a one-size-fits-all. We are each required to discover and create balance for ourselves in any given season, only to repeat the process over again in the next.

What does balance look like for you right now?


Jenna is a poet, musician, and a lover of deep connection with others. She recently graduated from Trinity Western University with a degree in Psychology, and is passionate about supporting others along their own unique paths of recovery and healing. This desire stems from Jenna’s gratitude toward those who walk alongside her in her own recovery. Jenna finds comfort in vanilla chamomile tea, walking barefoot outdoors, and hugs.

By Jaime Maguire

Do you ever look back on situations, experiences or memories, and feel like you were completely checked out?

Sometimes I wake up and think; have I been asleep for the last 6 months? What have I missed?

This realization came to me a few years after I finished school. During my final year, my eating disorder was at its peak. I was fortunate enough to do some traveling in that time, but due to the fact I was going through my own internal ‘stuff’, I felt like I was pretty checked out for those experiences.

Since then, I have always tried being really present in each moment; this is something I still have to work on now many years after overcoming my eating disorder.

As humans in general I think it is easy for us to go into ‘auto pilot’, without truly connecting to our experiences. We are taught to just ‘get through it’, rather than to stop and take it all in.

There are many practices you can implement to help you stay present, and its just about figuring out what works best for you. You can use your senses; touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing. I also like to focus on affirmations, meditation, mindfulness and yoga.

Using your senses can be the fastest way to bring you back into the present moment:

I was never really sure about affirmations, until I actually started using them. I started by writing them down in a journal, and then internally speaking them in daily life. The power affirmations have to change your perspective, create gratitude, and bring you into the present moment, is really quite incredible.

Here’s some examples of affirmations I first wrote in my journal:

These affirmations may or may not resonate with you and that’s okay. I started out by listening to the affirmations of others, and then writing down the parts that I connected to the most.

I want to share with you a little story I read recently in a book called Peace Is Every Step, by Thich Nhat Hanh:

Tangerine Meditation

"One day, I offered a number of children a basket filled with tangerines. The basket was passed around, and each child took one tangerine and put it in his or her palm. We each looked at our tangerine, and the children were invited to meditate on its origins. They saw not only their tangerine, but also its mother, the tangerine tree. With some guidance, they began to visualize the blossoms in the sunshine and in the rain. Then they saw petals falling down and the tiny green fruit appear. The sunshine and the rain continued, and the tiny tangerine grew. Now someone has picked it, and the tangerine is here. After seeing this, each child was invited to peel the tangerine slowly, noticing the mist and the fragrance of the tangerine, and then bring it up to his or her mouth and have a mindful bite, in full awareness of the texture and taste of the fruit and the juice coming out. We ate slowly like that. 

Each time you look at a tangerine you can see deeply into it. You can see everything is the universe in one tangerine. When you peel it and smell it, its wonderful. You can take your time eating a tangerine and be very happy."

This story is such a lovely reminder of how we can apply mindfulness into every day.

Mindfulness is actually scientifically researched. It can increase resilience to stress, positively effect the grey matter of the brain responsible for memory processors, learning and emotion, can assist in decreasing the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), improve quality of life in conditions such as ulcerative colitis and can improve the functioning of your immune system.

So now the ball is in your court, what can you do to be present in your life?

The following article were referenced:

Pannowitz, D 2015, ‘Clinical Applications of Mindful Eating.’, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 168 – 171, viewed 7th September 2016, http://web.b.ebscohost.com/.


Jaime is a Clinical Nutritionist (BHSc) from Perth, Western Australia. She was led to study nutritional medicine following her own experience with bulimia, and now focuses on supporting her mental and physical health post recovery. Jaime loves morning rituals and going on adventures.

By Kaela Scott

Q: If I don’t step on the scale, how am I supposed to know how I feel?

A: I am so grateful I got asked this question because it raises a very important issue and one that I feel deserves to be written about.

For people who struggle with disordered eating or an eating disorder the scale can often be used as a tool to determine how they feel about themselves. The numbers aren’t read as numbers, but rather as values of their worth. The reason this is so toxic is that for many people the scale determines who they are as a person and how they are “supposed” to feel about themselves and in general.

If I told you to wake up and go stand on a piece of wood and tell me how you feel about yourself, what do you think you would answer? I know this sounds abstract and random but the truth is it is no different. A scale doesn’t answer questions, it doesn’t tell you your worth, how you are feeling or if you are healthy. It is the meaning you take from the scale that causes you to do that.

It is also a tool that creates a lot of anxiety. If you step on the scale and you are temporarily okay with it’s reading, you spend the next few minutes feeling “good” only to then spend the rest of the day trying to find ways to keep the number the same or how to make it lower. In other words, what you thought would make you feel good only took you away from actually enjoying your day because you were left obsessing over how to maintain the scales reading. If you step on the scale and aren’t okay with it’s reading, you spend the whole day feeling awful and beating yourself up. This is an anxious state to live in and depletes you of so many things on so many levels.

"A scale doesn’t answer questions, it doesn’t tell you your worth, how you are feeling or if you are healthy. It is the meaning you take from the scale that causes you to do that."

So how would I sum up what a scale does for you? It makes you feel inadequate and removes pleasure from your life. It increases disordered eating or eating disorder behaviour and typically perpetuates the very challenges that are causing you pain.

I know it can feel like it keeps you safe but I would encourage you to really challenge yourself on that. Your scale only exacerbates the anxiety you live with every day. I know the anxiety of getting rid of it will be really high to begin with. In fact it may even feel impossible. Trust me when I say it’s not. The anxiety will eventually pass and, within that, will force you to really start paying attention to your body, your emotions, and what is coming up for you.

So set yourself a goal to get rid of your scale. Maybe it feels impossible to do this today, so set a date and slowly get yourself there. Some people find it easier to just rip the band aid off and get rid of it all at once and immediately. Others find it is easier to do it in stages (ex, only checking it 6 times a week, then 5, then 4 etc) until they get rid of it all together. Find what you feel works best for you and follow it through.


Kaela Scott is a Registered Clinical Counsellor who specializes in Eating Disorders. She runs her own private practice and works with the Looking Glass Foundation in both their summer camp and their Hand In Hand Program. She has been passionate about working with eating disorders since freeing herself from her own struggle and realizing what it is like to be happy and well. When she isn’t working, you can find Kaela either cozying up with a cup of tea and her friends or up in the mountains going for a hike.

By Ljudmila Petrovic

The prevalence of eating disorders, particularly among girls and young women, is often blamed on the media, on stick thin supermodels and actresses, on the countless magazine covers flaunting “best and worst” bodies, on societal pressure to be a size zero. In recent years, there has been a call to ban “dangerously skinny” models from the catwalk as a way of mitigating unhealthy body image in girls and women. “It’s very easy to say that a skinny model is responsible for encouraging young women to feel bad about themselves, but I absolutely strongly believe that is not the case,” responded Alexandra Shulman, the editor-in-chief of British Vogue. Eating disorders are often about body image, yes, but the reality is that the all-consuming nature of eating disorders is truly so much more complex than that.

Naomi Wolf’s seminal book, The Beauty Myth, argues that our society holds unrealistic, unattainable beauty standards for women as a way of oppression. Today’s omnipresence of media images is linked to the increases in plastic surgery, extreme dieting, and anorexia nervosa. While there is certainly some truth in these pressures and their inescapable nature, this is a dangerously simplistic view of the root causes of eating disorders. To begin with, it really only focuses on anorexia and disregards other equally serious types of disordered eating in which individuals are not necessarily visibly underweight. This is unfortunately a very common and harmful attitude that is responsible for an unacceptable number of people not receiving the help that they need. Furthermore, there is often a problematic view that a “healthy” weight indicates overall health, when the reality is that health exists at different sizes. Even for those in recovery from anorexia, the “refeeding” (that is, weight gain) part of recovery is not even close to the whole journey. Disregarding the deeper root causes impedes upon a sustainable recovery.

"Eating disorders are often about body image, yes, but the reality is that the all-consuming nature of eating disorders is truly so much more complex than that"

We are only now just beginning to extensively research anorexia and bulimia; there is comparatively very little research and awareness about other forms of disordered eating, such as binge eating disorder, OSFED (Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder), and orthorexia. Perhaps it is not the prevalence of eating disorders that has increased, but our understanding of them and our increased acknowledgment of them.

In her stunning book, Hunger, Roxane Gay writes about a sexual trauma and the link to her relationship with food and her body.  “I do not know why I turned to food,” she writes. “Or I do. I was lonely and scared and food offered an immediate satisfaction. Food offered comfort when I needed to be comforted...Food was the one thing within my reach.” She writes of her trauma, of gaining more and more weight to make her body “safe” after experiencing a gang rape. Gay perfectly illustrates the role of food and of the embodiment of trauma, no matter how the unhealthy relationship with food may manifest.

"I was lonely and scared and food offered an immediate satisfaction. Food offered comfort when I needed to be comforted…Food was the one thing within my reach.”

Inversely, it is not uncommon for restriction to arise as a coping mechanism in times of chaos or following a deeply traumatic event. In the former case, many individuals report feeling that their food intake was the only thing they could control in their lives at times when everything else seemed to be spinning out of their control. The latter case is especially true for girls and women experiencing sexual trauma. It is not uncommon to use starvation as a way of “disappearing,” of making their body “less,” of reverting it to a time before the traumatic event. “The anoretic operates under the astounding illusion that she can escape the flesh, and, by association, the realm of emotions,” writes Marya Hornbacher in her memoir Wasted.  “I was an anoretic because I was afraid of being human. Implicit in human contact is the exposure of the self, the interaction of the selves. The self I'd had, once upon a time, was too much. Now there was no self at all. I was a blank.”

There is no one cause of eating disorders. It is not one image or one comment. Eating disorders are complex and so deeply personal that they are isolating. This is not to say that the media and its messages do not affect the people consuming them, nor that these images do not push some people to eating disorders. But eating disorders stem from this and so much more, and to assume that this is the only (or even the main) reason for eating disorders disregards the complex link they hold to trauma and emotional factors. Ultimately, all of these factors cannot be separated from one another to find one true culprit. As Hornbacher so eloquently summarized it: “I cannot help but think that, had I lived in a culture where “thinness” was not regarded as a strange state of grace, I might have sought out another means of attaining that grace.”


Ljudmila graduated from SFU, where she studied psychology and gender studies. She lives in Vancouver, BC and is pursuing a career in counselling, with the goal of doing women-centred therapy. 

By Steph Algas

I remember the first time I learned about eating disorders. My mom bought me an illustrated book called “Woman Up!” from Chapters. She got it after Laura, a girl in my fourth-grade class, got her period during Capture the Flag. Laura was so spooked, she fainted in her hiding spot by the blackberry bushes. I had canned the book under my bed and it didn’t resurface until Cara found it while she was snooping for my leopard-print diary.

“Vaginas are less scary in cartoons,” Cara told me as she flipped passed the double page spread titled “What’s in your underpants?”.

The section on eating disorders took up a left-hand page. The drawing was a young girl with stringy blond hair. She had dark-ringed eyes and wore jeans that bunched around her knees and at her ankles. She had prickly vertebrae and clavicles as defined as chopsticks. She gazed at herself in a full-length mirror – her reflection a super-sized version of herself.

This is anorexia the book told us.

I didn’t learn about eating disorders again until the Healthy Living Section in Planning 10. We’d spent the morning going over examples of what a healthy life looked like. I wrote “Eat more fruits and veggies” and “Hit the gym” while Cara wrote “Don’t huff glue” six times over. When we reached the section on eating disorders, Mrs. Dunn copied two definitions from the textbook glossary. She wrote with a red dry-erase marker, in all caps on the whiteboard:

ANOREXIA is…

BULIMIA is…

We listed symptoms of EDs beside circular bullet points. We memorized the two definitions for half a mark each on a Healthy Living quiz. The topic pigmented our minds and faded just as quickly.

I left high school with two, fading academic definitions, and an ever-lasting idea of what an eating disorder looked like: female, teen, self-indulgent, attention-seeking.

A juvenile phase.

I majored in Psychology during University. Dr. Portman had PowerPoint presentations titled “Ways to Identify a Psychopath” or “Different Objects that Represent a Phallus in Dreams” but not much was said about eating disorders. There was an unspoken rule that, by twenty, we were immune to developing an eating disorder. We could place EDs in the “Not Me” pile, along with teenage pregnancy and getting a rebellious nipple piercing.

Looking back, I wish I’d learned so much more.

I wish someone had told me to focus less on the body and more on the brain. The brain fosters the disorder. The brain is where you birth the illusion that you’ve lost control. The brain instigates obsessive thoughts: Attention-seeker. Self-indulgent. Juvenile. Attention-seeker. Self-indulgent. Juvenile. The brain nourishes the shame. The brain changes the mental To Do list: “Stop today” to “Stop today tomorrow”

tomorrow

tomorrow

tomorrow

I wish someone had told me that sufferers highlight every comment muttered about EDs. They will replay that time Mike Fitz said in the A&W parking lot, “Bulimics have it figured out; they get to taste their food twice.” They'll remember their best friend polishing off a plate of butter chicken and saying, "I am so full I could throw up. But I'm not that desperate." They’ll picture their mom saying, “Can you believe Pat’s daughter was bulimic at twenty-five?” as she sautés onions. They’ll latch onto those memories and tiptoe further into the coldest and darkest mode of isolation.

I wish someone had told me that eating disorders aren’t sexist. They are not ageist. They don’t care about your socio-economic class or your sexual orientation. Eating disorders aren’t threatened by your Masters Degree in Health and Exercise Psychology or your full-time accounting job at KPMG. Eating disorders are not shallow. They love all shapes and sizes- tall, thin, round, broad-shouldered, clammy-palmed, flat-chested, pointy-eared. There is no defining trait.

I wish someone had told me that an eating disorder could look and feel exactly like me.


Steph is a Psychology/Biology Major from UBC Okanagan. She's into practicing Hatha & Yin Yoga, writing short fiction/non fiction and snacking on Vlasic Kosher Dill Pickles. She is inspired by those brave enough to bare their vulnerability.

By Kaela Scott

Q: I keep getting told I need to feel my feelings but I don’t know how to do that or what it even really means.

A: As a therapist, many people believe that the main area of focus in my work with clients would be on helping them understand and work through their emotions. This belief would be accurate. What causes the most grief, however, is trying to get people to understand the difference between feeling their emotions and thinking about their emotions. One of my clients this week made a really important point this week; he said “ I have always concentrated on getting through my feelings with a focus on getting to the other side, instead I need to be in my emotions, with the focus being on actually experiencing them.”

The more we focus on pushing through, with hopes of ultimately freeing ourselves of our feelings, the longer we remain hostage to them. Emotions have a role in everything that we do and the more familiar we become with them, the healthier and happier we can be.

Funnily enough, when I challenge individuals on what they want to accomplish out of our work together, I often hear the words “ I just want to be happy.” Happiness is an emotion – it’s an important emotion and one that feels so lovely to experience – but it’s still an emotion. Most people don’t strive to push through happiness but to be present in their happiness and to absorb as much of it as they can. Sadness on the other hand, is an emotion that holds just as much significance but feels a lot less enjoyable to experience.

"The more we focus on pushing through, with hopes of ultimately freeing ourselves of our feelings, the longer we remain hostage to them"

All emotions are important, some just feel better than others. Instead of focusing on pushing through, I encourage clients to try to just sit with them, pay attention to how they feel, notice where they experience them in their bodies. The more present we are with our emotions as they arise, the less control they have over one’s life. Instead of pushing, we sit. Instead of trying to get through them, we remain with them. This is what ultimately allows us to move through our painful feelings faster so we can experience the joy and peace we are looking for.

I often get asked how to do this – what tool can I provide people with to become experts in understanding and processing their feelings? The number one thing I recommend is to actually be present in their body. Most claim that they pay attention to their body but they do so with a sloppy, typically neglectful approach. Instead, be as methodical and detail oriented as you can be. When I ask people how they know the difference between their happiness vs sadness vs anger vs. love they tell me they feel different; their experience in their bodies is different with each emotion. So start noticing exactly how an emotion feels in your body. Compare them if you need to (how do I know I’m not happy? What makes this feeling different than happiness) and figure out where you physically notice those emotions. Be precise in your language – does your chest feel heavy? Do you feel tears in your eyes and a lump in your throat? Do you feel like your energy has been depleted? Do you feel like you have so much energy you want to dance? Does your chest feel open and airy? Are your hands relaxed or clenched?

Get so curious about yourself that you know exactly what each feeling feels like in your body. Your thoughts will follow and will give you their opinion, but your body will allow you to experience your emotions so that you can move, not push, through them to the other side.


Kaela Scott is a Registered Clinical Counsellor who specializes in Eating Disorders. She runs her own private practice and works with the Looking Glass Foundation in both their summer camp and their Hand In Hand Program. She has been passionate about working with eating disorders since freeing herself from her own struggle and realizing what it is like to be happy and well. When she isn’t working, you can find Kaela either cozying up with a cup of tea and her friends or up in the mountains going for a hike. 

By Kat Bernards

**TRIGGER WARNING: If you live with or are in recovery from an eating disorder, the following post could potentially be triggering**

It’s time for us to talk about To The Bone.

Given the flurry of media attention surrounding the controversial Netflix film, and the complexity of the issues raised by the individuals and organizations who have voiced their opinions of it, Looking Glass has decided to compose a collective response to the film from our perspective as an eating disorder recovery-focused organization. Our response should not be taken as a definitive or prescriptive stance, but rather as a critical lens through which to view both the failures and successes of a Hollywood film that seeks to convey an accurate, intimate portrait of life with an eating disorder. This piece will be triggering to some readers, and it will also discuss spoilers of the film’s plot and ending, so please exercise your best judgment in deciding whether or not to proceed with this article.

Netflix recently released the film, written and directed by Marti Noxon, which partly tells the story of Noxon’s own experience with an eating disorder. Starring Lily Collins, who is herself an eating disorder survivor, To The Bone follows one woman’s struggle and her experience at an inpatient treatment centre. It’s important to remember that the movie is just that – a movie. It’s a partial fiction, not an exposé of every eating disorder sufferer’s history, and is ultimately intended as entertainment.

While it can easily be seen as a triumph that we actually have a Hollywood film that shines a light on the darkness of eating disorders, To The Bone’s focus on physical appearance, disordered behaviours, and the burgeoning romance between the two main characters all serve to delegitimize the real work that goes into real-life recovery. Ultimately, the film is one long missed opportunity for a more in-depth exploration of its themes, and it also – inadvertently or not – reinforces some of the harmful stereotypes that have long been associated with eating disorders and mental health.

Eating disorders and thinness are fetishized throughout the film, and these are even further emphasized by the decisions and processes involved in the film’s production. It’s no secret that Lily Collins made herself extremely thin to take on this role, and we question whether this was necessary for the part. While we understand that actors often go to extremes to fully prepare for the roles they play, we as a society ought to be well past the point of shrugging our shoulders and accepting that this is the cost of doing business in Hollywood. It’s time to recognize that it’s one thing to create a beautiful, spunky, sexual, resilient female lead, but to suggest that her charm is entirely derived from the very disorder that is killing her is at best misguided, and at worst, incredibly dangerous.

Ultimately, the film is one long missed opportunity for a more in-depth exploration of its themes, and it also – inadvertently or not – reinforces some of the harmful stereotypes that have long been associated with eating disorders and mental health.

It’s dangerous because Collins’ character, Ellen, is in pain. And yet her pain is constantly devalued by the lighthearted depiction of her eating disorder behaviours – as well as those of all the other residents at Dr. Beckham’s treatment centre. For those of us who have personally known an eating disorder, we may see flickers of our own or a loved one’s experience in these characters’ comments and behaviours – especially, perhaps, in the way the film addresses the disordered “voice” that so often comes with the territory, or the ways in which loved ones can make mistakes even as they try their best to be supportive – and we may even find comfort in a moment of dark humour, if we are in a stable enough place to not be triggered by it. But we may also struggle to see ourselves at all in this film – eating disorders are not, after all, a one-size-fits all phenomenon dominated by stereotypically ‘skinny white women.’ And for those who view this film with no prior understanding of eating disorders, or who may be relying on such stereotypes for information, the stories on display offer little insight into the harsh reality of the disorder. The pain of the sufferers is too often minimized by the one-dimensional, unsympathetic portrayal of their disorders.

The upshot of this is that we don’t see an eating disorder’s intrusiveness, its control, or its cruelty played out in what these people are experiencing in their daily struggle to recover: instead, Ellen laughs hysterically while spitting out her food on a date; Megan’s loss of her child is played off as selfish; Tracey comes across as cold and judgmental of the other residents’ behaviours; Anna’s constant cheating on the program makes her seem shallow and competitive rather than being controlled by a sickness; and Kendra appears to be the film’s tokenized solution to Hollywood’s lack of diversity – a contrived, 3-for-1 nod to the Black, queer, and plus-sized communities. Meanwhile, Pearl’s fear of adulthood does have the heartbreaking ring of authenticity, but it’s unfortunately used only to juxtapose the scripted wit and wisdom that is reserved explicitly for Ellen and Luke. Their budding romance takes up so much space in the film that there is no room to develop the other characters, or to adequately explore the full and painful experience of their unique eating disorders – instead, they are trivialized and played for cheap laughs.

The pain of the sufferers is too often minimized by the one-dimensional, unsympathetic portrayal of their disorders.

Which brings us to Luke. It’s refreshing to see a male eating disorder sufferer portrayed in the film, but his character is deeply problematic in several ways. He hyper-sexualizes Ellen as well as her disorder, and his constant cheerleading of the others’ recovery is at odds with his obsession over Ellen and her physical appearance. We cannot pretend that he is a deeply-feeling romantic who sees only her soul – he sees her sickness, and he devours it. As the resident who is the most advanced in recovery, he also plays into the traditional Hollywood trope of a male rescuer –alongside Keanu Reeves’ Dr. Beckham – by cheering on the others and role-modeling (aka: mansplaining) for them what recovery should look like.

In contrast to Luke, the other patients appear weak and histrionic, needing his constant reassurance that they still have value. We are given false hope that Ellen will move past this untimely romance when she rejects Luke and his insistence that she must be his “next thing” – only to have her inexplicably return to him in a vision at the end of the film, in which he is not only her rescuer, but her recovery champion. Perhaps worst of all, Luke is the only character who is given a tangible, non-psychological excuse for having an eating disorder in the first place: his dance career has been destroyed by a knee injury, which led to his spiraling into anorexia. The problem is that eating disorders are inherently psychological, and to suggest that men’s eating disorders are less so is feeding directly into the shame and stigma that prevents so many sufferers from seeking help.

To The Bone does have something very legitimate to offer: a starting point for a more serious, in-depth discussion around eating disorders. As a Hollywood movie, it cannot be expected to represent all of our stories and lived experiences, nor can it be expected to properly educate the public about eating disorders. It leaves questions unanswered, and sentences unfinished. But for all its missteps, it does create space for others to come forward and do better – and we must hold space for that to continue to happen.


Kat graduated from Simon Fraser University with a degree in Psychology, and is thrilled to have joined the Looking Glass Foundation staff. She loves live music, theatre, writing, and singing when no one is listening.

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