- Did you know the mortality rate associated with Eating Disorders is 12 times higher than the death rate from other causes for high school and college age females?
- Did you know over 1/2 of all teenage girls and nearly 1/3 of teenage boys succumb to unhealthy weight control behaviors?
- Did you know between 1995 and 2005 the prevalance of Eating Disorder doubled among both females and males? (Can only imagine where this leaves us now!)
- Did you know hospitalizations for Eating Disoders in children under 12 increased by 119% between 1999 and 2006?
- Did you know studies show social media amplifies behaviors associated with Eating Disorders?
- Did you know according to the National Eating Disorder Association that Eating Disorders in the United States are more common than Alzheimer’s?
- Did you know 4 out of 10 people struggle or know someone struggling with an Eating Disoder; therefore, it is likely you, a friend or family member is secretly struggling?
No idea until it touched us personally. Now I know way more than the facts. I also know about the intense struggle, overwhelming temptations, shame, worthlessness and the roller coaster of good and bad days. And I know about the freedom that comes in lifting the veil of secrecy, even when the battle is still being fought. (For more on our personal story click here.)
Our family’s story is why this week during National Eating Disorder Awareness Week I will shine the spotlight on Eating Disorders by sharing over the next few days the personal stories written by three of my friends.
You will hear about struggles with food, but more significantly the reason why food is never really the issue. You will hear about healing and help, but more importantly the hope found only in Christ. Knowing who Christ is for us is not just the solution to eating issues, but to all of our issues. All of our struggles and all of our sin. This is because he lived the perfect sinless life required by God for us so that when God looks on us he sees us as perfect!
This is amazing. This is what justification is: making us right! This is why theology matters and gospel truth must be understood for real change.
I love how Extravagant Grace author Barbara Duguid applies justification in a very real and simple way regarding her own struggles with food when she writes about food’s powerful hold on her loosening when she finally realized that Christ ate perfectly for her!
This is what it means practically to see who Christ is for us. He succeeded where we fail. He performed so we don’t have to. He gave up his glory in heaven so we could be made right and spend eternity in his glory.
This is Grace.
I hope you will come back tomorrow to hear from Martha Kate of Leaving Perfection, Learning Grace as she tells of her struggle with ED from an early age through college. Then Parker of A Daily Heart will share tales of her disordered eating and finally Victoria, Executive Director of the Oklahoma Eating Disorders Association, will give her story.
Whether your struggle is with an Eating Disorder or something else, may the Lord use the beautiful messy stories of these women to point you to Christ. And when (not if, but when) you encounter someone in your life struggling with ED, you will be filled with compassion because you know what it means to struggle and to need a Savior!
If you are struggling with ED, please reach out for help. There is no shame. Christ came not for the righteous, but the sinners. And it is in our weakness that he is strong.
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