Exploring Meaning, Connection, and the Sacred in the Journey Toward Wholeness

Recovery from an eating disorder is often framed around food, weight, medical stability, and mental health. These are essential components. But for many individuals, healing also involves something deeper—a return to meaning, purpose, and connection that transcends the physical body.

This is where spirituality can play a powerful and restorative role.

Whether grounded in religion, nature, mindfulness, ancestral wisdom, or personal belief systems, spirituality offers individuals a way to reconnect with their core self, cultivate hope, and find meaning amid suffering. It’s not about bypassing pain or replacing treatment—but about deepening the recovery process through connection to something greater.

Eating disorders are often called illnesses of disconnection. They thrive in secrecy, isolation, and self-reliance. Many individuals who struggle with disordered eating find themselves pulling away from friends, family, and community—not because they want to, but because their illness convinces them that they are unworthy, misunderstood, or safer alone.

Recovery, then, is not just about food, weight, or behaviors—it is also about reconnection. Reconnection with others. Reconnection with the self. And learning, sometimes for the first time, what it means to be seen and supported without judgment or condition.

This post explores why eating disorders drive isolation, how that impacts relationships, and what it looks like to rebuild meaningful connection in recovery.

Understanding the Overlap Between Substance Use and Eating Disorders in Young Adults

“Drunkorexia” is not a formal medical diagnosis, but it is a term that increasingly surfaces in both clinical settings and college campuses alike. It refers to the combination of disordered eating behaviors and alcohol misuse, most commonly seen in adolescents and young adults. While the word may sound casual or even humorous, the reality is serious: drunkorexia is a dangerous and potentially life-threatening behavior pattern that places individuals at risk for both medical and psychological harm.

This blog post explores what drunkorexia is, why it occurs, who is at risk, and what can be done to address it—clinically and culturally.

Family-Based Treatment (FBT), also known as the Maudsley Approach, is a leading, evidence-based treatment for children and adolescents with eating disorders — especially anorexia nervosa, and increasingly for bulimia nervosa and ARFID.

When someone you love is struggling with an eating disorder, it can feel like you’re walking on eggshells. You may worry that saying the wrong thing could make things worse—or feel helpless trying to offer comfort when nothing seems to get through.

The truth is, how you communicate matters—a lot. While you can’t "fix" the eating disorder with words alone, effective communication can help reduce shame, increase trust, and make recovery feel safer.

This guide offers basic communication skills for families navigating the challenges of eating disorders—centered on empathy, boundaries, and connection.

Understanding the Complex Relationship Between Culture, Identity, and Body Perception

Body image — the thoughts, beliefs, and feelings we hold about our physical appearance — doesn’t develop in a vacuum. While personal experiences, media exposure, and peer influences all play significant roles, cultural traditions and norms are among the most powerful, yet often overlooked, forces shaping how we perceive our bodies.

Across the world, ideas about beauty, health, body size, gender expression, and aging are deeply embedded in cultural and familial traditions. These ideas can either protect individuals from body dissatisfaction — or contribute to shame, pressure, and disordered eating.

This post explores the nuanced ways cultural traditions influence body image across diverse populations, and how understanding these dynamics is essential for body-positive work and inclusive mental health care.

Stories That Celebrate All Bodies, Genders, Abilities, and Identities

Children begin to form ideas about their bodies and self-worth as early as preschool. Books are powerful tools to challenge stereotypes, spark important conversations, and reflect back the beauty of diversity. The following list includes books for toddlers to tweens that center body respect, inclusion, and inner strength — not just outer appearance.

From magazine covers to TikTok trends, children today are bombarded with messages about what their bodies should look like. Whether it's the “perfect” body, flawless skin, or certain facial features, these unrealistic beauty standards have become so normalized that many kids absorb them without even realizing it.

From magazine covers to social media filters, image editing has become so normalized that many adults barely notice it anymore. But for children and preteens still developing a sense of self, Photoshopped images can profoundly distort how they view their own bodies—and their worth.

While the use of Photoshop in advertising and entertainment is nothing new, the omnipresence of edited images on social media has created an environment where perfection seems not only possible but expected. In this post, we explore how digitally altered images influence children’s body image, the psychological mechanisms behind these effects, and what parents, educators, and caregivers can do to foster media literacy and resilience.

Low self-esteem is both a contributor to and a consequence of eating disorders. Many people struggling with disordered eating hold the belief that their worth is tied to how they look, how little they eat, or how in control they feel. Recovery challenges those rules—and when those external markers are taken away, it can feel like there’s nothing left to hold on to.

So how do you rebuild a sense of self that isn't defined by weight, perfection, or performance?

In this post, we’ll explore the roots of low self-esteem in eating disorders and offer practical, evidence-based tools to help you grow a more solid, compassionate sense of self.

Exploring Identity, Acculturation, and Appearance Pressures in a Marginalized Population

Body dissatisfaction is a widespread issue in many societies, but for Asian American women, it often exists at a unique and painful intersection of cultural values, racial stereotypes, and Western beauty ideals. Despite being underrepresented in eating disorder research and treatment conversations, Asian American women are not exempt from the impact of disordered eating, appearance anxiety, or body image struggles. In fact, these experiences may be underreported, misunderstood, and deeply internalized.

For many individuals, especially in long-standing or high-achieving cases, the eating disorder is not simply a behavior — it becomes a source of pride, identity, and self-worth. Restriction becomes discipline. Control becomes superiority. Thinness becomes accomplishment. In this way, ego investment in the disorder can become a major barrier to recovery — not because the person isn’t suffering, but because a part of them believes they are succeeding

While most people are familiar with eating disorders like anorexia nervosa or bulimia, fewer are aware of Rumination Disorder — a rare but serious feeding and eating disorder that often goes undiagnosed or misunderstood. Individuals with rumination disorder experience repeated regurgitation of food, which may be re-chewed, re-swallowed, or spit out — and it’s not due to a medical condition or reflux.

Whether you're a caregiver, clinician, or someone seeking answers for yourself or a loved one, understanding the symptoms, causes, and treatment of rumination disorder is essential to providing compassionate care and effective intervention.