Episode 2.12: Why Eating Disorders? With Vaidehi Gajjar
Eating disorders are the #1 cause of death among all mental health disorders. And yet, South Asians have very little awareness about them. Why?
What are eating disorders? Are they a pattern of restricting, binging, or purging food? Or are they actually a symptom of some greater unaddressed mental health issue and/or past traumas?
In this episode, I speak with writer Vaidehi Gajjar (@vgajjar95, Brown Girl Magazine, We Are Saath, Circuit Sehat, The PFS Institute) about our past shared experiences as South Asians with an eating disorder. We talk about the unique ways our culture can feed into and/or delay treatment of them, as well as intimate details about how it personally affected our illnesses. In addition, we break down how we think they developed, the recovery process, relapse, and the slippery slope of comparisons in mental health. We also discuss why it's difficult to predict the future of the Desi condition of E.D.s and suggest ways to reframe the question of eating disorders especially as it pertains to the Desi condition.
Listen here.
Further Reading: