At the intersection of eating disorders & money 🥐

Where diet culture and capitalism collide

For people who struggle with disordered eating, December and January are the hardest months of the year.

In December, the holiday season is centered around food. We are encouraged to binge. We are “forgiven” for overeating. We celebrate wasteful excess at the family table. In contrast, January is all about restriction: intense diets, hardcore gym routines, and comments about each other’s bodies thrown around without consent.

Money follows a disordered, binge-and-restrict cycle this time of the year, too — and I don’t think it’s a coincidence. In December, we are pushed to hyperconsume and shop for gifts. In January, we are expected to rein it in and stop spending completely. Diet culture and capitalism are deeply intertwined, so the similarities in disordered eating and disordered money habits don’t surprise me.

To explore the relationship between disordered eating and money, I spoke with Dean Stahl, AMFT, a queer and trans psychotherapist who specializes in eating disorders. I was surprised to learn that queer and trans folks experience higher rates of eating disorders than cishet people, and our symptoms tend to be more severe.

“In any demographic, trans folks – we have the highest rates of eating disorders,” says Dean. “Some people who can’t get access to hormones or surgery will stop eating, either to create a waist or to have a boxy, ‘masculine’ frame.” Dean says that surgeons often require people to lose weight and fall under an arbitrary BMI to qualify to receive gender-affirming surgery. Dean adds, “That can be really addictive and people try to lose weight too fast.”

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Eating disorders thrive on social isolation — so does financial shame

There’s one glaring behavioral overlap between eating disorders and financial shame: Isolation.

People who have experienced food insecurity have a hard time asking for help. It’s hard to ask friends and family members to help them buy or prepare food, or simply look up a food bank near them, says Dean. They add, “Social shame associated with EBT is a barrier to food.” People might need support with every step of accessing money for food through EBT, but rarely ask for that support.

“On the flip side of the shame cycle, it’s like, ‘I can’t afford to eat. What a piece of shit I am.’ Then they buy a bunch of stuff and eat until they can’t feel,” says Dean. This binge-eating often happens in secret, with cheap food, like fast food or junk food.

In my practice, I’ve seen both behaviors plunge people deeper into debt and financial crisis. When folks have a hard time asking for help, they end up putting groceries on a credit card or literally going days eating only one meal a day. I’ve also seen folks order appetizers, drinks, and dessert when eating at a restaurant, but starve themselves in private to make up for the fact that they couldn’t afford the meal they bought with their friends. In their mind, that expensive meal was the only way to connect with people.

“Healthy” food costs more money

On top of all of this, January comes with the pressure to eat “healthy.” The Pew Research Center reports that 90% of Americans say healthy food has gotten more expensive in recent years. The pressure to eat healthy food could come with a higher price tag.

“There’s an eating disorder diagnosis called orthorexia, which is an obsession with eating healthy,” says Dean. “People who have this would say, ‘I’m only going to eat foods that this influencer tells me is healthy!’ or ‘Carrots and lentils and lemonade – I’m only going to eat this because that’s healthy, or I’m going to punish myself and not eat at all.’”

Dean says that orthorexia has its roots in settler colonialism. Quoting the book Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings, Dean says, “Through the process of colonizing Turtle Island, European colonizers pretty much declared all Indigenous food as unhealthy and all European food as healthy. There’s this idea that being healthy is closer to God and being unhealthy is devilish.”

This intersection of purity culture and food definitely shows up in people’s finances: When my clients have tried to cut back on dining out before, I’ve noticed a spike in their grocery spending because they intended on cooking only “healthy” recipes with organic ingredients and higher-quality cuts of meat. After a week and a half, they realize their cooking goals are completely unrealistic and most of the groceries end up going to waste.

Tips for people who are struggling with both disordered eating and money

Leo’s recommendations:

• Order groceries online for delivery or pickup. If you don’t have a lot of money to buy food, order your groceries online instead of going to the grocery store. Shopping in person makes it harder to keep track of how much you’re buying, plus, it’s a lot easier to take things off your cart when the total exceeds your budget when you’re shopping online.

• Stock up on extra shelf-stable or freezer-friendly items when you can afford it. Some grocery trips happen the day after payday when you’re feeling a little more flush with cash, and some grocery trips happen the day before your next paycheck hits when you’re clutching your wallet a bit tighter. No shade, we all go through it! On the days that you have more space in your budget, stock up on food that can sit in the pantry and freezer for a while so you have food to eat when you can’t afford to go shopping.

• Use the cash envelope method to set aside money for groceries or going out to eat with friends. The cash envelope method is when you set aside money in envelopes assigned to specific categories. So, for example, if you have $350 for groceries in the month of January, you’ll put $350 in an envelope and only use the cash while you’re at the grocery store. It’s harder to do the cash envelope system these days because a lot of businesses no longer take cash. But most grocery stores still accept cash, so this method works well for groceries. You could also set aside some money in an envelope for dinner with friends to reduce the risk of overspending on dining out.

Dean’s recommendations:

• If going to the grocery store causes you stress or anxiety, try going to the store even when you don’t need to buy anything. “Just walk through the grocery store and learn where things are,” says Dean. People tend to zone out or disassociate in the grocery store, and Dean says it can be helpful to see how your body feels in each section so you can make a game plan for shopping day.

• Put on a podcast or listen to music to help you focus and stay grounded while grocery shopping.

• Find accountability buddies who you can talk to about food. “I’m a big believer in having people you can call or text about food and being vulnerable. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. It doesn’t have to be paragraphs. We can come up with an emoji that we send friends when we’re having food or money freeze, panic, or overwhelm,” says Dean.

• For people who work in an office and feel pressured to buy lunch instead of eating a packed meal, “Tell the people you work with, ‘I want to have lunch with you. Can we go to [insert less expensive restaurant here].’ Or you could say, ‘I actually brought a lunch today. Does anyone want to get their lunch to go and sit with me?’” If you work in an office, eating alone when everyone else is going out to lunch can feel lonely. Dean encourages folks to set the tone instead of going along with what their coworkers might want to do.

Dean Stahl, AMFT is a queer and trans psychotherapist who specializes in disordered eating and ecopsychology, a field that explores the deep connection between human psychology and the natural world. Dean serves clients in California. They can be reached at deanstahltherapy@gmail.com.