Who Needs Help? Learning to be more loving and less condescending.

I just finished reading a recent post at TwistedBarbiesRevolution. She is a grad student (working on a Masters in Social Work in both Clinical Social Work and Policy and Advocacy) and she is currently working in a drug treatment facility. I found her post very inspiring because she clearly cares about the well-being of her patients and also about the well-being of her profession.

In her post, she talks about the insensitivity of professionals working in the facility with regards to conversations about weight. Constant talk about diets, weight gain=bad, weight loss=good, “tsk tsk she used to be so pretty, too bad she gained weight,” etc. Sometimes the staff are speaking with each other and sometimes they are talking to patients.

TwistedBarbie, in case you are wondering if anyone is listening I want you to know that I am. You have a lot to offer your field, and I really believe that they are lucky to have you, with your specific life experiences and your specific viewpoints. You have an advocate’s voice, something that you don’t always find, even in therapeutic fields.

The stories told in this blog post made me sad. Here are people working in a drug treatment facility, a place where people have come hoping to be helped, with no understanding that some of the patient’s seeking treatment may also have eating disorders. Clearly their good intentions to have everyone stay thin (because we all know that’s ultimately everyone’s goal right?) not only fall short of being helpful but may actually be harmful.

I am also going to admit, although I am not proud of this, that TwistedBarbie’s post made me realize some of the ways that I do this myself. I speak quite passionately about body image and having strong self-esteem no matter what your weight. Lately, I have begun to notice that some of my friends are sounding defensive about their diet goals when I am in the room.

I know that some of my friends are feeling like they have to defend themselves and justify their decision to diet, and this makes me sad. No matter how well-intentioned I may be, my crusade to have them love their bodies at every weight and to see that it is possible to be healthy at every size, may be costing me some intimacy.

It is true that I want some of them to see that becoming Vegan just to lose some weight is ridiculous because it’s not a style of eating that they will maintain and they may very well gain more weight when they return to non-Vegan eating. But they want to hear, “Oh my god you look so thin and beautiful, congratulations!” I know that they are full of pride because it feels like they are working hard to achieve an important goal. And the honest bottom line is that their goals are their own to determine.

I could show them medical research that shows that being Vegan risks brain atrophy and they will show me medical research that screams “fat kills!” OK, it’s really a B12 deficiency that makes your brain shrink and those “fat kills” studies are highly suspect for accuracy. My point here is that one way of eating, no matter how healthy it may seem, isn’t for everyone and everyone needs to make their own decision about what they eat.

I believe that you only offer to help people when you think that they are in some way incompetent, or if you think that they can’t do it themselves. You might instead ask to join them if what they are doing looks like fun. Perhaps you would say, “Can I be of help?” or “Do you think you can use me?” But saying, “Do you need help?” feels rude to me. I am beginning to see that I have been giving unasked-for body image and diet advice. I have been offering to help people who really don’t need me to tell them what to do with their lives.

When I tell people that I love that instead of having weight loss goals, they should consider instead health and fitness goals, understanding that they may not even lose any weight, this probably sounds crazy and may even seem to them that I am trying to stop them from accomplishing something important, even life saving.

I feel very uncomfortable when I am with my dieting friends. I want to scream when I hear the constant praise for choosing to not eating something “bad,” and praise for being “good” when someone brags about what they didn’t eat. But I am beginning to see that perhaps they are just as uncomfortable about my health and body image viewpoints as I am with theirs.

They never asked for my help in improving their self-esteem and for the most part my friends are a very self-confident bunch. There is just this area around weight and body size where I see an enormous amount of self-doubt. In their minds this increased interest in eating less in order to lose weight is about improving their health and feeling good.

I may want to help someone love their body, and to see that beauty comes in many shapes and sizes, but judging them negatively is not helping in any way. They really are just doing their best to feel good, be healthy, and enjoy their lives. This is the particular path that they are taking and truthfully I don’t have to be victimized by the presence of diet talk.

As TwistedBarbie may be finding out, I think that sometimes people are drawn to working in a psychology based field because they really need some psychological help themselves. Perhaps I am drawn to blogging not only because I want to be heard, but because ultimately, I want to learn to listen.