Discovering the Roots of Toxic Food Shame: A Personal Story

June 23, 2021 Tanya Stricek

PLUS: How I use EFT to support my emotions

TW: Emotions around strict parenting and mental illness

I remember many moments in childhood that contributed to my layers of food shame. It happened so slowly, quietly.

My food shame thoughts were intertwined with the general shame I learned to feel about myself, and my body, at a young age.

Food shame can be a toxic practice that gets woven in us, starting in childhood.

My food shame came from using food to cope with stress in childhood and being judged for it.

It also came with being teased about my body.

This created many patterns around my eating, that I started to understand when I started to learn Mindful Eating.

The shame drove me to the food. The food created more shame.

This shame-eat-shame cycle had been part of the fabric of my being.

It amplified in perimenopause, where the shame of food and my body took over.

In this episode, I share an experience of tuning in to the roots of my shame.

I then just came to my laptop here to record it, in the moment.

I was very young and poured boiling water on my arm, making tea. I was in grade 4, or 5.

This memory had not been in the forefront of my consciousness for ages.

I shared how I used EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), and allowed the feelings to just BE what they were.

I talk about my mom, who had mental health issues, and how I felt as her child when this event happened.

*If you are a survivor of childhood trauma, you may want to skip this.*

The content isn’t graphic, or violent. It is part of my story.

Since I am not an eating disorder clinician, I want to put that in here. I never intend to cause harm, just share my story for information.

Yet sometimes someone else’s memory may trigger a memory for you. And I do not want to cause any harm for you.

EFT or Emotional Freedom Technique is shared in this episode. It helped me uncover tough emotions, instead of eating them.

The Emotional Freedom Technique has been studied and is shown to improve many markers of health(1)!

This is a wonderful compliment to supporting health with a Non Diet Approach.

As always, I welcome your thoughts and comments.

I am thankful for them, along with the ratings, and reviews on iTunes, that help other women see stories like this.

Let me know in the comments if you are familiar with EFT!

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