2010-2011 UNC School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry Clinical Psychology Internship Wallach Award to Cristin Runfola, M.A.

The faculty of the Clinical Psychology Internship Program are pleased to announce that Cristin Runfola, Eating Disorders intern, is one of the recipients of this year’s Wallach Award. The Wallach Award intern displays significant progress toward excellence as a scientist-practitioner. This includes an appreciation of the empirical basis of psychological work in the intern’s chosen area of clinical practice, demonstrated strengths in written and oral expression, and high ethical standards. Additionally, the awardee demonstrates the thoughtful style, conscientiousness, genuine care and respect for clients and colleagues, and advocacy of the needs of underserved populations which characterized Dr. Martin Wallach. Cristin will be remaining at UNC next year as a post-doctoral fellow. Congratulations to Cristin!

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Does body acceptance affect health?

No, but this became a question for Jess Weiner, author, self-esteem expert, and leading activist in the body acceptance movement after a “weigh-in” (no pun intended) with her doc.  In a recent article in the September issue of Glamour magazine, Jess Weiner bravely shared the results of her medical “weigh in” that left her questioning whether loving her body was affecting her health.

After struggling with an eating disorder, Jess, like many individuals in recovery from an eating disorder, replaced the scale with other more important factors to measure her self-worth. She fully embraced the body acceptance movement, loving her size 18 body and successfully advocating for others to do the same. However, during a talk, after an audience member questioned, “How can you be healthy looking like that?” she realized that in addition to avoiding the scale, she had been avoiding the doc’s office and all medical markers of health and wellness (e.g., cholesterol, blood pressure). She had no idea how healthy she really was!

Our own Cynthia Bulik, Ph.D. weighed in on the issue regarding underlying motivations for avoiding the doc. She discussed the issues of provider bias and stereotyping of heavier women that occurs in the medical setting and can lead to “simplistic thinking” regarding women’s health and an immediate response of “you need to lose weight.” Check out what else she had to say at: 
http://www.glamour.com/health-fitness/2011/08/jess-weiners-weight-struggle-loving-my-body-almost-killed-me
.

The article discusses how a trip to the doctor’s office informed Jess that her physical health was not great and that she was close to the pre-diabetic danger zone. With a family history of heart disease and diabetes, this propelled her to make lifestyle changes in order to achieve not just mental, but physical health. Simultaneously, she began to question whether accepting and loving her body was putting her at risk physically (hence the provocative title, “Loving my body almost killed me”).

Through the course of this journey, Jess found that it was not body acceptance that was leading her down a potentially dangerous health path, but some extreme thinking that might have put blinders on her. In the cognitive-behavioral world, she (like many of us) fell prey to what we call all or nothing thinking and generalization. Her body acceptance generalized beyond not focusing on weight to the point where she was eschewing basic health care behaviors such as visiting the doctor and monitoring her health—not her weight.

Even our great leaders and thought provokers today fall into “thinking traps.” It is those who share their experiences and admit their “errors” that evoke the type of discussion and self-reflection that propels our field forward.

Jess’s messages came across even more clearly in follow-up interviews with NBC and Kate Harding. She emphasized that weight loss and body acceptance can co-exist and that loving your body means treating it well on the inside and out. During her appearance on NBC, she stated, “I didn’t just set out to lose weight…it was a part of my health awakening, but not my sole purpose…it was about how I wanted to feel.” She learned that for her weight loss did not equal bad or represent acceptance of society’s thin ideal, but that it was a means to an end in line with over-arching core values of health and full physical functionality, not appearance. She needed to clarify what body acceptance and loving her body meant to her.

While there are some controversial points brought up in the Glamour article, there were important messages and questions worthy of consideration and reflection for all. A couple that stood out to me: One, accepting and loving our body does not mean disregarding our health; in fact quite the opposite. Two, weight loss and gain may be secondary to engaging in health-oriented behaviors that are appropriate for sustaining optimal health and physical function. Three, living our value-driven life feels best – it is important for us to step back and reflect on whether our current behaviors are in line with our core values in life. Four, challenging ourselves by asking questions is important to move ourselves and our field forward. Lastly, and most importantly, if Jess got each of all to have a hard think about what acceptance and loving your body means to us, and helped us to appreciate that it might mean different things to different people, then her courageous article was a success!

My definition of body acceptance: viewing my body and the bodies of others in a non-judgmental and non-critical way, while also accepting the changes that may need to occur externally in order to maintain health, wellness, and optimal physical functionality.

Loving my body means: engaging in behaviors that show respect, kindness, and acceptance for my body, including providing my body with the nourishment, rest, and care it needs to function and treat me well. It means considering all aspects of health that affect my body including physical, psychological, and mental health.

You can view the NBC interview at:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/3041426/vp/44088947/

By: Cristin Runfola, M.S.

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Email from a summer intern

I received a great email from Anna Jones, one of our summer interns in 2010.  Anna is a Durham native and rising senior at Brown University.  I was so thrilled to hear about the group that she’s starting at Brown and she gave me permission to share her email with you!  We started our summer internship in 2010 and had 3 more summer fellows this summer.  Please think about applying to intern with us in 2012.

Hi Stephanie,

I hope you are doing well. I have been meaning to email you for a long time.  I can’t believe it has been a year since my time working with you all. After returning to school I realized how much I learned last summer. I constantly found myself talking about my experience-so thank you for making that possible. Also, my friend and I started a group called Eat, Play, Love with the idea of providing a “safe space” to talk about body image/food issues. Last year was kind of a trial run; we had potlucks with discussions and decided that we wanted the emphasis to be on the positive side of food and exercise. After not having an on-campus nutritionist for the fall semester, we got a terrific nutritionist in February who has been very supportive. We will see where this goes next year. Again my time at UNC last summer was what made this possible!  When I came back to campus and started to talking to people about these topics I realized that almost everyone I spoke with had dealt with some sort of issue or had had an experience with a friend or family member. Students seemed interested in having a forum to discuss these ideas.

Anyways I just wanted to say hi and thank you once again for the wonderful experience last summer!

Best,  Anna

~Stephanie Zerwas, PhD

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A Restorative Experience

Mae Lynn Reyes reading from Aimee Liu’s book

I have been participating in the International Conference on Eating Disorders (ICED), the official meeting of the Academy for Eating Disorders (AED) since 2003, enjoying the passion for research and the academic world. A new refreshing experience was the 2011-ICED fundraiser gala in honor of Aimee Liu’s new book “Restoring Our Bodies, Reclaiming Our Lives.” This is only the second time that the AED has included a fundraiser gala in the program. The first gala was in Boston in 2002, organized by Cindy Bulik and Anne Kearney-Cook. That gala raised enough to fund the AED clinical and research scholarship fund through 2011. This year’s gala was designed to pick up where that one left off. To do so, Aimee Liu graciously donated all of the profits from her book to the AED, and Donna and Randy Friedman underwrote the event to maximize funds that could go to the scholarship program.

Cindy Bulik and Steve Wonderlich emcee the event

In the academic world, we are accustomed to the familiar process conducting scientific research, analyzing results, and then disseminating them to the scientific and clinical community to assist with diagnosis, treatment or understand of eating disorders. Knowledge is, however, a multilevel and reciprocal process that is enriched by both objective and subjective experiences. There are multiple “ways of knowing”—each perspective is valid and critical to a comprehensive understanding of eating disorders. The author, Aimee Liu heroically collected personal stories from patients recovering from eating disorders and her book offer them a platform to share their recovery journeys. As scientists, we often hear voices of those in recovery as expressed through our data—frequency distributions, t-tests, regressions—although critical to advancing knowledge, alone this “way of knowing” leaves a distance between the researcher and human experience.  There are moments when it is good just to listen, with the only goal of listening with an open heart.

Cindy Bulik and Steve Wonderlich were the emcees for the evening which was attended by people with eating disorders, families, clinicians, researchers, and AED past, present, and future leadership. The gala included a performance by Jenni Schaefer from her new CD, phoenix, Tennessee, and I had the honor of being one of the readers of the passages from the

Jenni Schaefer and Tamara Noyes capture the crowd

book.

It was heartwarming to see the AED provide us with the opportunity to truly listen to the voices of recovery. I was fortunate to have been part of this experience and look forward to the next event that reminds us why we do the work we do.

~Mae Lynn Reyes, PhD

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