0:00

Hey, it's Latif from Radiolab. Our

0:02

goal with each episode is to

0:04

make you think, how did I

0:06

live this long and not know

0:08

that? Radiolab. Adventures on the edge

0:10

of what we think we know.

0:12

Listen wherever you get podcasts. This

0:22

is All of It on WNYC.

0:24

I'm Koushia Navadar in for Alison

0:26

Stewart. Hey, happy Friday. We made it

0:29

to the end of the week. I'm super happy to be

0:31

here with you. On the show

0:33

today, April showers bring May flowers and

0:35

spring is in the air. So later

0:37

on, we'll speak with experts on all

0:39

that comes with spring, including dealing

0:41

with seasonal allergies and looking forward to

0:44

new books from both big names and

0:46

up and coming authors. But

0:48

first, this hour, we revisit

0:50

a popular series we call Mental

0:52

Health Mondays, where each week we

0:55

take on one topic that has to

0:57

do with difficult emotions and life experiences.

1:00

So let's begin with

1:02

an important conversation about

1:04

our misconceptions around disordered

1:06

eating. From

1:12

a young age, writer, Emmeline

1:14

Klein, experienced disordered eating. And

1:16

for her new collection of essays,

1:18

she decided to reflect on her

1:20

struggles with her own body. The

1:22

book is called Dead Weight, Essays

1:24

on Hunger and Harm. And in

1:27

it, Klein takes a close look

1:29

at our weight obsessed culture and

1:31

drawing on extensive research. She argues

1:33

how the media, the economy, even

1:36

our medical systems perpetuate

1:38

our concerns over our weight. Klein

1:41

joined me recently to talk about the

1:43

book and her research. And we also

1:45

took your calls. But today is an

1:48

encore presentation. So quick reminder, listeners,

1:50

while you'll hear callers during this

1:52

conversation, we can't take your calls

1:55

live right now. And one

1:57

more heads up, we're going to be talking about disordered

1:59

eating. eating and self-harm in this

2:01

conversation. So please do listen with

2:04

care. I started by

2:06

asking Emmeline about her relationship with

2:08

her own body and when she

2:10

first encountered the words anorexia and

2:12

bulimia in her life. That's

2:14

an amazing question. Honestly I feel like it

2:16

hasn't been phrased to me in exactly those words

2:19

before and I think something

2:21

that's so distressing about our

2:24

society and specifically the way young girls

2:26

are socialized is that like I don't even remember

2:28

the first time I heard those terms but I think they were

2:30

always floating around. I'm 29 so

2:32

I grew up in the very like 2000s

2:34

era middle school culture

2:40

where you were constantly seeing the

2:44

celebrities that you were watching on

2:46

television shows and in movies be

2:51

extraordinarily overtly

2:53

bullied by mainstream media outlets for

2:55

the way that they looked up

2:58

until they became so skinny that

3:00

suddenly they were being bullied for trying to embody

3:02

what they had just been told to be embodying

3:04

and so I feel like there was both

3:07

a glut of sort of she's scary

3:09

skinny tabloids articles in like 2005 to 2008 that

3:11

I was kind

3:14

of consuming in a like kind

3:16

of amorphous way whether I was actually like buying

3:19

them or just seeing them at the grocery store at

3:21

the same time as there was sort of a glove like

3:24

lifetime movie type content and like

3:27

teen girl like sort of

3:29

YA novels that are

3:32

sort of were very glamorized

3:34

big diseases a lot and functioned

3:36

often as like unwitting

3:39

manuals even if that's not what the author intended

3:41

so I think I was growing up in this kind

3:43

of culture in middle

3:45

school where I was seeing a lot

3:48

of iterations

3:50

of this sort of skinny sad

3:52

girl trope that was

3:54

very seductive and glamorous to

3:56

me and I think to many other

3:58

people growing up in that time And I

4:00

first began like struggling with these issues myself

4:03

on a level that was like affecting my behavior When

4:06

I was around 12, it's interesting that

4:08

you bring up the term that the handbook they

4:10

didn't know existed I understand that this book dead

4:12

weight that you wrote you started working on this

4:14

book in 2019 and it started as a very

4:17

different Book, I believe it was

4:19

women's hysteria that you wanted to focus on Can

4:21

you tell us a little bit about your writing

4:23

journey and how you ended up honing on this

4:25

topic of disordered eating? Totally,

4:28

um, I think I mean one

4:30

of the main Impetuses

4:35

for writing this book and then I will go

4:37

backwards and answer your question I promise it's related

4:39

but is that I

4:42

feel like disordered eating is

4:44

just a highly highly demographically

4:46

prevalent and Incredibly

4:48

dangerous one of the most

4:51

lethal mental illness besides opioid

4:53

addiction in this country And I sort

4:55

of felt like there

4:57

when I was trying to do

4:59

my own recovery journey Which involves a lot

5:01

of self-education on the history of these issues

5:03

Like I couldn't really find a book that

5:06

gave this disease these these

5:08

diseases the sort of very

5:10

layered intellectual like social

5:14

Cultural criticism but also sort

5:16

of economic and political contextualization

5:19

that similarly prevalent diseases Like

5:21

depression and opioid addiction and alcoholism

5:24

that don't primarily afflict women Get

5:27

pretty regularly in a literary non-fiction treatment

5:29

but I think I I

5:31

was so I was looking for a book like that and I didn't see one

5:33

but I think I knew that part of the reason

5:36

that didn't exist is because When something

5:38

when a social force is primarily

5:40

manifesting itself through The

5:43

pain of young girls. It's not taken seriously

5:46

And I think I was afraid to write a book that

5:48

really centered disordered eating this way Because I

5:50

worried it wouldn't get taken seriously and would

5:52

be misunderstood or overlooked and so I

5:55

think part of the reason I started out wanting

5:57

to write this book about female hysteria was because

6:00

I mean, it is a very interesting diagnosis to me,

6:02

but I was interested in sort of like, what did

6:04

it mean back in Victorian times and who

6:06

might be our modern iterations of it?

6:08

But I think I was sort of using that as a

6:10

cover to write about eating disorders

6:13

in a way that I had, because

6:16

so many of the symptoms of Victorian

6:18

era female hysteria and then the characters

6:20

I was interested in in the

6:22

modern era, whether that's like me or Misha

6:24

Barton or whatever, were people that were dealing

6:27

with symptoms of disordered eating, but I think I

6:29

thought, oh, this is an issue that has been

6:31

taken seriously because like male doctors were writing about

6:33

it for so long and like maybe

6:35

I can sort of Trojan horse in what I actually

6:38

wanted to do. But then I decided

6:40

that I just realized how truly pervasive

6:45

this issue is and that it would be doing a

6:47

disservice to so many stories that

6:49

have been censored and silenced to not

6:51

sort of take the, not do the

6:53

Trojan horse and just do it straight up. So you're kind

6:56

of describing a process where you started out on

6:58

square one and you found out no, actually it's

7:00

square three that I want and you're kind of

7:02

paring back the onion until you found the core

7:04

and that frightened you. Is that fair to say?

7:06

There was some fear there? Yeah. And

7:09

you said the fear was about not

7:11

being taken seriously. Is that fair? Yes,

7:14

I mean, I think that's definitely what I said.

7:17

So you understood correctly, but I think it's sort

7:19

of layered. It's more like, it's not

7:21

even about, it's not, it's

7:24

in general in literature, I

7:27

feel like people with eating disorders have

7:29

been sort of either mocked or condescended

7:32

to or maligned or just

7:34

generally misunderstood, right? Because in a

7:36

lot of kind of academic studies,

7:39

people with eating disorders are tasked as like

7:41

very stubborn and spoiled and sort of like

7:44

these bratty types of patients. And

7:46

then in self-help books, they're

7:49

often cast as like people

7:51

who have misunderstood or

7:53

like over, Let

7:56

let let society's messages.

8:00

Get too deep into their brain and taking them too

8:02

seriously and sort of gone crazy. And.

8:05

Both of those readings are very.

8:08

I think reductive and also looks

8:10

kind of individual narratives that really

8:12

cost the blame on specific individual

8:14

women for like either misunderstand like

8:16

for up for taking such a

8:18

message that they should have been

8:21

able to sort of reach into

8:23

their own feminism and realized isn't

8:25

as. Serious. As bad

8:27

as they're taking s or. Lot.

8:31

Of interest as a sane are simple

8:33

or whatever and so I just was

8:35

really worried that in trying to I

8:37

have I just I wanted to level

8:39

a like as I as I say

8:41

in that part that you read like

8:44

I wanted to level with people who

8:46

are for so long been either marks

8:48

or condescend. It's are just misunderstood. By

8:50

a medical establishment of trying that in

8:52

trying to treat their disease often reinforces.

8:55

The logic when like in fact that where

8:57

I wanted to say the women he was

8:59

you're not crazy, you're not reading societies messages

9:01

wrong, you're actually you been locked into a

9:04

room where we've been playing on of speed

9:06

really cruel messages about your body and how

9:08

you should manager and you've been sort of

9:10

reading between the line and and really internalized

9:13

that because you are smart but the coping

9:15

mechanism you've developed is in fact the disease

9:17

that I don't think is going to. Get

9:20

you where you want to go in the same way that. That

9:23

you might think it as when you're in

9:25

the throes of disease. Yeah, you're losing all

9:27

of it. Were talking that Klein author of

9:30

Dead Weight, a book of essays on disordered

9:32

eating and Emmeline a rep for We Go

9:34

To Break Bad. One question about the book

9:36

title itself. The title of your book is

9:39

Dead Weights and you know that term works

9:41

on multiple levels. One of them is economic.

9:43

There's an economic term called that weight loss

9:45

with looks at indecision, season, hidden costs in

9:47

the markets, and that term is in a

9:50

one to one translation of what you discuss

9:52

in the book. but you do look

9:54

economics and our economic system squarely in

9:56

the face in fact a one point

9:58

you right Eating disorders are good

10:01

for capital. What did you mean by

10:03

that? So what

10:07

I meant by that is that both

10:09

the weight loss industry and

10:12

the kind

10:15

of obesity industrial complex are

10:17

both profiting at a mass

10:20

scale off of our epidemic

10:22

of eating disorders. So

10:24

the weight loss industry is

10:27

a multi-billion dollar industry and

10:29

we know that diets become

10:32

eating disorders very often. The

10:35

National Eating Disorder Association statistics are that

10:38

35% of diets become pathological

10:40

and then a quarter of those progress into

10:42

full eating disorders. And so often

10:45

with both eating disorders

10:47

and extreme diets, which I often think

10:50

are sort of extreme diets

10:52

usually can fade into eating disorders and

10:54

these terms are very much like

10:56

spectromy and their

10:59

spectrums more than they are like separate silos.

11:01

And diets we

11:03

have known since obesity first

11:05

began being researched in

11:07

the 50s don't work and 95% of

11:09

them lead people to gain the weight

11:12

back pretty soon after the diet ends.

11:14

So the concept of a restrictive period,

11:16

whether that's shading into

11:18

the level of anorexia or whether it's just a

11:20

diet, adjust a diet, which I think itself is

11:22

a misnomer and part of the problem and the rhetoric of the

11:25

way we talk about these, often

11:27

lead people into a

11:29

binge cycle, which

11:33

then they're dealing with

11:35

so much shame about that they'll circle back to the

11:38

next diet company, right? And

11:40

start paying for that one. And so people

11:42

get trapped into these binge and

11:44

restrict cycles of paying for expensive diet

11:46

plans that don't work. And

11:48

we know they don't work and the companies

11:51

know they don't work. There was a Leaked Weight Watchers memo where

11:53

they talked about, where the CEO said that

11:55

of course people usually come back at least four

11:57

or six times in the course of their Weight Watchers.

12:00

journey because that's part of the business plan. And

12:02

then on the flip side, eating disorder treatment

12:04

is one of the most expensive forms

12:07

of treatment for any

12:09

mental illness that we have in

12:11

this country. And yet it is

12:13

also the form of treatment besides

12:15

opioid addiction that has the highest

12:17

relapse rates and usually requires like

12:19

multiple rounds

12:21

of treatment and this like cyclical return to

12:24

these residential centers that aren't really solving the

12:26

problem. So you have two

12:28

industries that are hugely profiting

12:30

and have no incentive to

12:33

try to change it. So it's a lot like

12:35

the system is put in place specifically to perpetuate

12:37

the cycle we find ourselves in. I'm

12:39

talking to Emmeline Klein who's author of Dead Weight Loss. We're

12:41

going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. You're

12:53

listening to all of it. I'm Kusha Nafidar

12:55

and I'm talking to Emmeline Klein, author of

12:57

Dead Weight, a book of essays on disordered

12:59

eating which is out now. Emmeline,

13:02

I want to dive right back into it.

13:04

You talk about the media a lot as

13:06

well in your book. As a teen, you

13:08

were an observer in the pro-ED community. It's

13:10

online blogs and websites that promoted disordered eating.

13:13

You said this was the first time

13:16

you read other girls' candid experiences about

13:18

food and eating. What did

13:20

that feel like reading these very real stories for the

13:22

first time? I mean,

13:25

it felt just like I'd finally

13:28

found... To the

13:30

point I was making before, when

13:32

you're struggling with disordered eating, it's so easy

13:34

to feel like you're crazy and

13:36

you're the one person that can't handle society's

13:38

messaging right and you're taking all these things

13:41

way too far and you're wrong

13:45

in some way. So to realize, to

13:48

find a community that was sort of fostering

13:50

this sense of solidarity and

13:53

saying to each other, validating

13:55

each other's experiences and telling each other that

13:57

you're not crazy and you actually are so...

14:00

like it was just extremely cathartic,

14:02

even as it also inspired, especially

14:04

as I returned to it during

14:06

the research in this book, so

14:08

much mourning in me, so much sadness for how

14:11

many people have been harmed

14:13

by this beauty standard and the way

14:15

that this beauty standard is perpetuated by capitalism

14:18

as we were talking about before. And

14:20

I really, this book

14:22

is a project of amplification and of

14:25

attention because the story we've been told

14:27

about eating disorders is so slim and

14:30

centers on a specific stereotype to the listener

14:32

who tweeted about Ben Juning disorder,

14:34

for example, it's been so

14:36

centered on this one stereotype of like

14:38

the thin white anorexic girl. And I

14:40

wanted to really break open that

14:43

incredibly narrow sculpture that's like of a

14:45

small thin body, as sorry, as narrow

14:47

as the bodies we've been taught to

14:49

want and sort of listen to

14:51

stories of people in all shapes

14:53

and sizes and genders of bodies, but

14:56

also who've experienced disordered eating in various

14:58

different ways that really are so

15:01

articulately and eloquently described in

15:03

these spaces, but often get censored

15:05

in the mainstream narrative. And I think

15:07

to the question of media also relates

15:09

to what we were talking about moments

15:12

ago about capitalism because the media industry

15:14

is yet another industry in addition to

15:16

the obesity medicine industry, the eating disorder

15:19

treatment industry and the weight

15:21

loss industry that is hugely profiting off of

15:23

our eating disorder epidemic, because not only is

15:25

the media profiting off of

15:28

selling us this beauty standard, they're also profiting

15:30

off of really sensationalizing stories

15:32

that demonize young teenagers with eating disorders

15:35

that were in these forums, right? And

15:37

so you saw in the ATHs era,

15:39

a lot of coverage of these pro

15:42

eating disorder forums that were really casting

15:44

young girls as like dangerous vectors

15:47

of illness and like demonizing forms

15:49

of female friendships that were really people's

15:51

only outlet for care, especially

15:53

in a vacuum of care because a lot of people

15:56

couldn't access care because they weren't considered thin enough. Well,

15:58

you know what you're talking about, I think the... phrase you

16:00

used was narrow narratives and narrow

16:02

bodies that match and we actually have a

16:04

caller online too that I think can read

16:06

in a personal perspective here. We have Michelle

16:08

from Long Island. Hi Michelle, welcome to the

16:11

show. Hi, thank

16:13

you and I'm really interested in reading your

16:15

book. It sounds terrific and it'll put

16:17

a lot of things, you know, medically

16:19

in perspective for me. I grew up

16:21

and I'm old and I grew up

16:23

in the days of Twiggy who destroyed

16:25

my life. I mean I remember being

16:27

in elementary school and you know other girls

16:30

were wearing miniskirts and I couldn't.

16:37

So I've been fighting the whole

16:39

battle of the weight thing for a

16:41

million years and I was telling, saying

16:44

that it's weird what can help you.

16:46

I mean I've gotten much better over the years

16:48

and I'm more or less under control but I

16:51

still have it in my head about you know

16:53

I don't look good enough blah blah blah but

16:55

I read this book recently as a fiction

16:57

book called Once Upon a Time in

16:59

Beverly Hills and it was about a

17:01

TV star who was told she had

17:04

to lose weight or get fired

17:06

and the book in the book and it

17:08

really helped me I don't know it's like

17:10

almost magical in the book the the TV

17:13

star wishes on a magic ring and she

17:15

loses all the weight and it's

17:17

all about what happens to her life when she

17:19

gets really skinny and how her life

17:21

turns topsy-turvy and it's just a fun

17:23

book but it was sort of the

17:25

moral of be careful what you wish for

17:27

and it's sort of put in perspective like oh

17:29

my god my whole life I've been wishing to

17:31

be thin and you know what is it

17:34

really gonna change my life no it's not

17:36

and you know am I at a healthy

17:38

weight now yes thank goodness I am but

17:41

it's like just interesting what can help you

17:43

and how the book just sort of eased

17:45

my mind. Michelle thank you so much for

17:47

that call and for your story and sharing that

17:49

experience with us one thing that stood out to

17:52

me was how this goes beyond generation and how

17:54

this is a long

17:56

time that multiple generations have gone through this

17:59

and you mentioned Michelle towards the end

18:01

about being able to get to a healthy weight,

18:03

happy to hear it. We have a text that

18:05

I think I'd love to hear your reaction to,

18:07

Emeline. This topic is very relevant to me and

18:10

my heart goes out to people that are hurt

18:12

by this. If diets don't work and therapy doesn't

18:14

work, what is the answer? It feels like it's

18:16

a trap where the only answer is an unhealthy

18:18

one. Emeline, what do you think? I

18:21

mean, I really

18:24

have found for myself that the

18:28

only avenue to, I mean, it was to

18:31

Michelle's point of it is surprising sometimes

18:33

what will help you, but I think

18:35

for me it's been so

18:37

galvanizing and liberating and cathartic to find

18:40

community and to truly just be open

18:42

and honest with other women about these

18:44

issues. I really think that we've had

18:46

a culture of silence around eating disorders

18:48

for a long time to your point

18:50

about this being an intergenerational issue and

18:53

even that culture of silence is

18:55

such that we only allow that one narrow story

18:57

to be the one that's told. And so a lot

18:59

of other people think, oh, I wasn't as sick as

19:01

my friend, so I shouldn't talk about this or like

19:04

whatever it is that

19:06

there's so much shame around talking about these issues, whether it's

19:08

the way I just described her because you think it's not

19:10

feminist to admit you're struggling with this or whatever it is.

19:13

But I truly believe that like pretty

19:16

much every woman I've ever met and almost every

19:18

person I've talked to about this has had some

19:20

form of, you know, emotional

19:22

journey with what eating food has meant

19:24

for the way that their body is

19:26

received by the world and when we

19:28

can sort of talk about that with

19:30

each other and realize, honestly,

19:32

pardon the pun, but like the crushing weight

19:35

of pain that has been enforced on women

19:37

by like capitalism's obsession

19:39

with this beauty standard. It can

19:41

be so inspiring

19:44

to recovery because

19:47

of this sort of sense of solidarity like

19:50

it's often sometimes it's hard to motivate yourself

19:52

on just an individual level because it

19:55

can seem like being thinner your life will be easier but when

19:57

I think about it instead as like, well,

19:59

I don't to bring my body into closer

20:01

alignment with the beauty standard that I politically

20:03

disagree with, but that every time I do

20:05

something, do some disordered

20:07

eating to get closer to, I'm teaching

20:10

my younger cousin or a friend that

20:12

I love that that is

20:14

possible without self-harm. And so if you can

20:16

motivate, I think that if we can motivate

20:18

ourselves through solidarity, it

20:21

can be really, really inspiring to

20:23

recovery. And I've heard that from people who

20:25

have said that they wish their treatment had

20:27

more space for talking in an uncensored

20:29

way and who wish that they had more political

20:31

education in their treatment. Let's make that space right

20:33

now. We've got a couple more callers I want

20:35

to go to back to back. First, Andrea from

20:38

New York. Hi, Andrea, welcome to the show. Hi,

20:41

thank you for this subject. I found

20:44

after being in many

20:46

different treatment programs and rehabs for

20:48

eating disorder that going

20:50

to 12-step programs

20:53

were really helpful. And

20:56

not just the OA type meetings,

20:58

but AA, because realizing that it's

21:00

really an addiction and

21:05

keeping the focus away from body,

21:07

but also this is a disease,

21:09

an addiction. And whenever there's a

21:11

tough feeling, you know,

21:13

it's what you result

21:15

into going to the addiction.

21:19

And part of the solution

21:21

is service. And

21:24

by, you know, I would imagine by doing this

21:26

book by, you talked about

21:28

community, you know, all of

21:30

these ways of doing service really helps

21:32

take the focus off

21:35

the problem and focus

21:37

on the solution. And that

21:42

I have found that that has been the solution. I

21:44

really am free of this. Andrea,

21:48

thank you so much for sharing that and talking about

21:50

that community. Let's go to Susan in Manhattan. Hi, Susan,

21:52

welcome to the show. Hi,

21:54

how are you doing? I

21:56

just want to bring up that I'm 74 and I

21:59

have been dealing with With a needle sorry

22:01

since I was twelve at that time

22:03

they were putting our kids are met

22:05

your towel diet pills or that kind

22:07

of stuff and others along suicidal reasons

22:09

as you know from of people being

22:11

overweight whether it's been family is able

22:14

greens, family habits or whatever. But the

22:16

one thing that a A I still

22:18

cannot get in touch with is how

22:20

you do not pass it onto the

22:22

next generation. How I've seen the my

22:24

family that it's Scardino with the. Pet.

22:26

Grandparents props and then the parents and

22:29

then the children and grandchildren. And

22:31

by pro choice to be very honest

22:33

with a nice about how that what

22:35

my struggles are and also about on

22:38

what it meant to me the of

22:40

way I carried a lot of weight

22:42

from most my life and on. but

22:44

I got a response in the admit

22:46

that encouraged her to feel bad about

22:48

her body, encouraged her to have an

22:50

eating disorder so it seems to me.

22:53

It's confusing and job to one nobody was

22:55

it had any similar experiences or ways of

22:58

dealing with it. Susan, thank you so much

23:00

offered considering that as well and you know

23:02

I'm one. I'm looking at the clock with

23:04

about twenty seconds left as you listen to

23:07

that, questions about what's next to impossible to

23:09

his or and Twenty Second Smith's what are

23:11

you hoping Readers take away with that respect

23:14

from your book. Am.

23:16

I really think the just a guy

23:18

like. I apply

23:20

the law solicitors honesty even if

23:22

it ends up not being taken.

23:24

In the cracked way I said, there's no

23:27

way to speak about this perfect place ads.

23:29

Being. Open and honest and sort of trying

23:32

to create community around it is so important

23:34

and something that was so. I.

23:36

Thought I would like same. Who as two seconds

23:38

is it's I never have a big. Part.

23:41

Of this but is neither demonizing nor.

23:43

Glamorizing people who are suffering from

23:45

eating disorders. right? and so I think like

23:48

to the listeners have mentioned twiggy like to

23:50

let somebody the to the listener to just

23:52

spoke to felt like they accidentally encourage something.

23:54

Like all of us have been victims and

23:56

whenever we beat ourselves up too much for

23:58

the way in which we've tried to. The

24:00

Bible Society that has wants us to do

24:02

self harm We are. Actually it's ignoring the

24:04

most important question, which is who taught us

24:06

to behave this way and who taught us

24:08

to think this way. And so I think

24:11

if we shift of frame to try to

24:13

demonize. The structure rather than each other. we

24:15

can find a really beautiful community with each

24:17

other that. Sucks that that. Sort.

24:19

Of relieves the law These questions of blame

24:21

that I think blind us to the real

24:23

driving forces under and you know I said

24:26

wait a few seconds left with seal voiceless

24:28

important conversation and we actually just had i

24:30

think of really important call come through as

24:32

well because this goes beyond gender roles as

24:34

well right now and we're talking about women

24:36

so far but men have an important conversation

24:38

to playing here to or there's a color

24:40

and true from Essex County Andrew Thanks for

24:43

seeking and read the answer. Welcome to the

24:45

show. Aired Feather

24:47

you search for. Having me I

24:49

have a own. A

24:51

young teenage girl who faithfully

24:53

is doing a lot better

24:56

but but struggled with anything

24:58

sort of for a year.

25:00

So ultimately she wound up

25:03

in in residential program out

25:05

of state and that ultimately.

25:08

Really? Did the trick for her.

25:10

I'm not so sure that. It's

25:12

the practices. the methodology is behind

25:14

the treatment, but. I. Know

25:16

that she's she's cheated being in residential

25:19

he being so far away from us

25:21

that she was determined to do anything

25:23

she could to never go back there

25:25

again. With

25:27

most troubling about this is is

25:29

it is a disease And it

25:32

is. It's affecting so many young

25:34

people but there's no real medical

25:36

treatment for it. And. so

25:38

we wound up for many many

25:41

months seeing as a series of

25:43

different social workers who claim to

25:45

have you know experience and treatments

25:47

and it was it was it

25:50

was really difficult i do have

25:52

one question however my daughter although

25:54

she is is is recovered and

25:57

in doing quite well recently she's

26:00

She's had this experience where

26:02

she finds any kind of

26:05

food, like the textures of

26:07

food and the smells of food, to

26:09

be really off-putting.

26:12

And it hasn't been really a

26:14

speed bump in her recovery,

26:17

but it is something that's

26:19

kind of developed

26:22

in the last few weeks or a

26:24

month. And she's educated

26:27

us and said that, my wife and I,

26:29

and said that there's something, there is a

26:31

new, there's a type of

26:34

condition for people that are recovering from eating

26:36

disorders where, have you heard of this? I

26:38

can't recall what the name of it is,

26:40

but she... Andrew, thank you so

26:42

much for sharing that. And for the question, Emeline, I'm

26:44

going to bring it back to you just as we

26:46

wrap up here. The question was about textured foods, but

26:49

also we're getting a lot of texts that are coming

26:51

in that are saying, please quickly talk about community. How

26:53

do we create community? Let's bring this all together. And

26:55

Andrew, really appreciate your call. So here's how we're going

26:57

to approach this. For all the

27:00

people that are listening, man, woman, otherwise, that

27:02

are thinking about where do I go to

27:04

next, can you suggest any resources or any

27:06

next steps for people out there? Yes,

27:08

of course. And thank you, Andrew, for sharing that.

27:10

And I'm glad your daughters doing better. And

27:13

I'm sorry, we don't have time to get more into

27:16

the details with your question. I

27:18

think there are... I mean, again, I just

27:21

really think that truly I know

27:23

this sounds oversimplified, but I think

27:26

if you ask people in your life

27:28

about their relationship to food and to

27:30

what it's meant for them as they

27:32

move through the world and how their body is

27:34

received, you can have a lot of really cathartic

27:36

conversations. I think in terms of specific resources,

27:40

Project Heal and The Fed

27:42

Up Collective are two really

27:45

great nonprofits

27:47

around you, these stories that are incredibly

27:49

inclusive and are incredibly aware of that

27:51

narrow storyline we've been talking about and

27:53

are trying to disrupt it. And both

27:55

of them run Zoom support

27:57

groups that are really great. And

28:01

there's also eating disorder anonymous zoom groups

28:03

online that are available Unfortunately, a lot

28:05

of it hasn't gotten back to in

28:07

person post-pandemic in the way that like things

28:10

like a I have so I'm hoping That

28:12

happens more in the future. But those are

28:14

a few that I would recommend that was

28:16

my conversation with author Emmeline Klein about her

28:18

new essay collection It's called dead weight essays

28:21

on hunger and harm and it was part

28:23

of our ongoing mental health Monday series