By: Amy Diana Ramirez
Longmont, Colorado, the Hollywood Times 2/26/25
Now fast approaching the final hours of Eating Disorder Awareness Week (February 26th through March 2nd, 2025), it’s high time many of us examine our relationship with food and our feeding/eating behavior.
The annual Eating Disorder Awareness campaign strives to educate people about the brutal realities of eating disorders. For example, the latest statistics reveal that every 52 minutes, one person dies as a direct consequence of an eating disorder.* (hereafter will be referred to as “EDs”).
The ED Awareness campaign also aims to foster hope in individuals and family members affected by these challenging, sometimes chronic conditions. This year’s theme, “The Time is Now,” emphasizes the urgency of sharing knowledge as well as the value of early detection in harm reduction.
The best-known celebrity who displays marked signs of ED recovery would be billionaire entertainer Taylor Swift. She has been quoted stating that she used to starve herself to the point of collapse; that it became almost customary for her to blackout after a performance.
Certain videos and photographs of Swift taken between 2014 and 2016 reveal how underweight she had become. While performing her own stunts for the Out of the Woods video – shot in frosty New Zealand – she surely suffered for her art.
in her memoir “The Official Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour Book, she explains “My relationship with food and my body had become a toxic cycle of self-abuse that utilized the tools of starvation, binge eating, body obsession, and compulsive exercise.” [Taylor Swift, 2020.]
Being an undeniable idol to many – an idol that some “Swiftys” (her megafans) strive to emulate, it seems highly responsible of her to have chosen recovery and gotten her weight and Body Mass Index (BMI) into a safe, normal range. Her gorgeous recovery and accentuated career success undoubtedly encourages certain onlookers to commence their own ED recovery journeys.
Besides the EDs that we already know about – for example, anorexia, which typically presents severe underweight/low Body Mass (BMI) Index due to a highly restrictive/avoidant feeding pattern and bulimia – a pattern of binge-purge behavior that involves overeating followed by vomiting, ingesting laxatives, and/or engaging in excessive exercise. There is a plethora of related, sometimes overlapping, lesser-known conditions, many of which are not yet deemed official psychiatric diagnoses listed in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – 5th – Text Revised (DSM-5-TR).
BDD = Body Dysmorphic Disorder (an extreme preoccupation with a body part, parts, or body size/shape). [This disorder is a distinct psychiatric diagnosis that frequently accompanies a disturbed eating pattern.]
“Diabulimia” = Diabetic Bulimia means controlling weight by manipulating insulin)
“Pregorexia” = Undereating to the point of danger to mother and/or child while pregnant
“Bulimarexia” = Alternating between restriction/avoidance/fasting and binging followed by purge behavior. [If the patient’s weight/BMI is very low, this pattern is considered a subtype of anorexia nervosa.]
“Bigorexia” aka muscle dysmorphia, is a condition that involves being overly concerned with building muscle on one’s body.
“Orthorexia” = an extreme obsession with eating healthy, pure and/or clean.
BED = Binge Eating Disorder (commonly associated with obesity) [This disorder is an official psychiatric diagnosis.]
Some patients are diagnosed with ED-NOS (‘Eating Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified’) or OSFED (‘Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder’). People with ED-NOS or OSFED have symptoms that are similar to one or more eating disorders in the DSM but may not meet all the criteria.
Of course, for a successful recovery, eating disorder cases require a multidisciplinary approach that addresses the psychological, physical, and behavioral aspects of the disorder. The latest, most effective (evidence-based) psychological treatment for EDs has been named Radically Open Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (RO-DBT). Developed by Thomas R. Lynch, PhD, this novel treatment is primarily concerned with diffusing over-control which is found most in patients diagnosed with restrictive/avoidant food patterns). It differs from classic DBT because it focuses on relinquishing control rather than deliberately controlling or regulating behaviors and emotions (the latter treatment being more commonly needed in those who engage in binge-purge behavioral patterns).
If you suspect that someone close to you is struggling with an ED, please be aware that it’s best not to comment on their eating behavior or their appearance (their body in particular). If you feel you can make headway, you might encourage him or her to seek professional help, but approach the matter delicately, speak from the heart, and get to it sooner rather than later. Time may be running out for the person you are concerned about; cardiac arrest can occur at any moment when one is entrenched in an ED.
If you are the one struggling and if you fear recovery – that it will feel out of control, heed the message of this woman who recovered from destructive restrictive eating after the pandemic:
“Recovery happens when you allow it. It’s important to remember even though it feels like you are losing control, you are, in fact, the only one who is in control of your health and happiness. It’s okay to ask for help, and it’s okay to allow it.” – Olivia, age 25, February 25th, 2025.
Isn’t it about time to grant yourself the opportunity to experience the wonderous miracle that recovery tends to be – the developmental breakthrough that you are meant to experience? Get yourself “out of the woods” as Swift has… and sprint ”swiftly” into your recovery era. After all, The Time Is Now.
*Deloitte Access Economics. The Social and Economic Cost of Eating Disorders in the United States of America: A Report for the Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders and the Academy for Eating Disorders. June 2020
https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/
AFTERWORD:
Hollywood Times author Amy Diana Ramirez has a private psychotherapeutic practice that offers sessions devoted to clients struggling with disturbed eating patterns and/or BDD (Body Dysmorphic Disorder). Not only has she been trained in CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), DBT (a type of CBT), and newly versed in RO-DBT, but Amy has also overcome bulimia and anorexia. She is especially well-equipped to support others on their healing journeys. She even welcomes the more resistant cases that have seen little improvement with other practitioners and ED programs. You can reach Amy by email: [email protected]
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/amy-diana-ramirez-longmont-co/110315