Quieting the Eating Disorder Voice (For Good)

Written By: Sarah Poling, RD, LD

Senior Dietitian

Are you constantly bombarded with negative messages and narratives that tell you how worthless you are for eating certain foods, why you must spend all of your time counting calories and weighing yourself, and how you won’t be happy until you reach an ideal body weight? You’re not alone! These thoughts are what we like to call the “eating disorder voice” and they absolutely get in the way of having healthy relationships, being your authentic self, and sustaining your physical wellbeing in the long-term.

We created this blog post to help you bring awareness to the eating disorder voice, what it does, and why and how you can challenge it so that your best self can emerge from the shadows of your eating disorder identity.

The eating disorder voice will make you feel inadequate, unlovable, and unworthy regardless of whether you meet its demands or not. Even if you meet the grueling and unsustainable demands of your eating disorder, this will never truly “be enough”, satisfy your eating disorder’s greatest desires, or “solve” any problems your eating disorder has convinced you will be resolved once you lose weight or eat “perfectly”. The eating disorder does not care about:

• Your body size
• Your health
• You ethnicity
• Your gender
• Your age
• Your skin color
• Your physical appearance or abilities
• Your financial situation
• Your goals or greatest passions

What is the Eating Disorder Voice and What Does it Do?

The eating disorder voice (“ED voice”) is the loud toxic inner dialogue that has negative opinions when you’re making choices about food, movement, or body image. Oftentimes, folks with eating disorders have a hard time differentiating the eating disorder voice from their own – which makes separating yourself from your eating disorder identity all the more important. Remaining fused with your eating disorder voice will only allow your eating disorder to thrive. Here are several reasons why it’s imperative to let go of the eating disorder voice:

• The eating disorder voice has become your identity
• You mistake the thoughts in your head that stem from diet culture as your own
• You think the eating disorder and the eating disorder thoughts are unique to you
• You think you are failing if you’re not meeting the demands of the eating disorder voice
  

This voice serves many functions and roles and acts as a coping mechanism to help distract or deflect from painful and difficult emotions – primarily, it can temporarily offer comfort, control, protection, and escape from traumatic experiences and uncomfortable feelings you may not have skills to communicate, manage or navigate. So, of course it makes sense to lean on an eating disorder to manage and meet these unmet needs. If you continue to listen to your eating disorder voice this can result in destructive behaviors, medical emergencies, and even death.

What the Eating Disorder Voice Says

The eating disorder will go to great lengths to persuade you into following its irrational rules that ultimately keep you stuck in the punishing diet cycle. You may notice how the eating disorder voice manipulates you in the following ways:

• Promising: “You can eat that hamburger and fries as long as you go for a 90 minute run”
• Persuasion: “When you lose weight and are thinner, your life will be better and happier”
• Fear: “If you don’t count calories and lose weight you will gain weight and people who gain weight are seen as unhealthy and unworthy of good things”
• Self-criticism: “I can’t believe you ate that. You have no willpower, no wonder your life is a mess”
• Translating: “When they say ‘you look healthy’, what they really mean is you’ve gained weight”
• Denial: “My blood pressure and vitals are low because I’m an athlete, not because of caloric deprivation. I don’t need to restore weight”

The Dietitians at Karuna like to think of the eating disorder voice as an abusive partner (because, let’s be honest, that’s how it behaves) and we help and encourage our clients to use this as a tool to set healthy boundaries with their eating disorder in order to move towards recovery and restore their health and relationship with food, body, and movement.

Ways to Challenge the Eating Disorder Voice

Challenging the eating disorder voice and setting boundaries with it is an essential part of recovery that allows you to make choices aligned with your values and your authentic self. Here are some of our favorite tips for letting go of the eating disorder voice for good:

• Get to know your wise mind or your recovery voice to help you differentiate between your eating disorder’s values and beliefs, and thoughts of your own
• Think of your eating disorder voice as an abusive partner and work to set boundaries
• Externalize your eating disorder by giving it a name or drawing a picture of it
• Say your eating disorder thoughts out loud to someone you trust

Are you ready to start setting boundaries with your eating disorder and tapping into your wise mind that will help you cultivate healthier relationships with food, body, and movement? Reach out to Karuna today!

References:

Rivera, Alexa. “Challenging the Eating Disorder Voice | ACUTE.” ACUTE, 28 Apr. 2023, www.acute.org/blog/challenging-eating-disorder-voice. Accessed 11 Sept. 2024.

Dietitian, Shena Jaramillo. Registered. “What Is the ED Voice and How Do I Shut It Up!” Peace & NutritionTM, 8 Apr. 2022, peaceandnutrition.com/what-is-the-ed-voice-and-how-do-i-shut-it-up/.