Tagged With "Early trauma"
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A Different Kind of Food Trauma - Surviving Meanness
It is traumatic when your family does not share the food they have. Not because it is in short supply rather it is done out of meanness of spirit. However, as a child, you conclude you are not good enough, you do not belong. It is painful to be excluded.
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Biomarkers for Diabetes May Differ Based on Childhood Experiences [Diabetes In Control]
MIDUS study looks at individual adverse childhood experiences and their impacts on future diabetes. An adverse childhood experience (ACE) is any experience that produces long-lasting stress in a child’s life and leads to worse overall health, both psychological and physical as an adult. Research has shown that even a single ACE increases the risk of diabetes, but little is known about the mechanism behind this phenomenon or how to prevent its occurrence. Currently the CDC only recommends...
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Childhood Trauma Can Impact Our Gut Bacteria
Scientific links between adversity and gut health. Is there an opportunity for nutrition to play a role? https://www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/news/childhood-trauma-can-impact-our-gut-bacteria-317561?fbclid=IwAR08DGFCEftxoJhC7JOZZ4MNvlsOLNYg3TeLV-2i-AykvIhEJgWNfttWqMw
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Cooking with Kids: A Recipe for Family Bonding (stresshealth.org)
One of the best ways to get kids excited about good food is to get them into the kitchen. Besides the fun of making a meal, you’ll be cooking up some family togetherness. This is especially important if kids have experienced trauma or adversity, which increases the risk of anxiety and depression. Not only does nutritious food lower that risk, but cooking it together provides a sense of connection and belonging. It’s especially powerful when making a beloved dish passed down through...
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Culinary Medicine: How Therapists are Using the Rituals of Eating to Heal Trauma
https://newfoodeconomy.org/culinary-meal-as-medicine-mindful-eating-trauma-anxiety-disorder/
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Detroit Entrepreneurs Fight Food Insecurity With Lessons Of The Past
This is an excellent example of using trauma-informed principles to shape a nutrition security initiative. Community voice, empowerment, and peer leadership are essential aspects of trauma-informed services and programs. It also pays attention to food quality, the store experience, and racial equity--things that are often missing from efforts to address food insecurity. ...
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Dysfunctional Eating May be Rooted in Early Life Experiences [psychcentral.com]
By Traci Pedersen, PsychCentral, September 20, 2019 Dysfunctional eating habits in overweight and obese adults may be deeply rooted in one’s personality traits due to early life experiences, according to a new study published in the journal Heliyon. As a result, weight loss interventions like surgery and cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) might not be enough to guarantee long-term success. “While the biological and environmental causes of obesity are well known, psychological determinants that...
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Epigentic Research: Trauma and Nutrition
https://conscienhealth.org/2018/12/inheritance-of-trauma/
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Everything You Know About Obesity is Wrong
This article blew me away... " Which brings us to one of the largest gaps between science and practice in our own time. Years from now, we will look back in horror at the counterproductive ways we addressed the obesity epidemic and the barbaric ways we treated fat people—long after we knew there was a better path. ....... 'A lot of my job is helping people heal from the trauma of interacting with the medical system,' says Ginette Lenham, a counselor who specializes in obesity. The rest of...
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How Trauma Can Affect Nutrition
http://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/how_trauma_can_affect_nutrition
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Obesity and the Link with Childhood Adversity: An Interview with Mary Giuliani
Most people who struggle with weight and food have probably suspected that trauma in the past plays a role. In this new video, Anna Runkle (the Crappy Childhood Fairy) interviews Mary Giuliani, who explains what we now know about childhood adversity, food and obesity. She shares how she lost 160 pounds (and has kept it off for 15 years), and teaches ways to calm emotions (and the brain) and face the triggers that drive overeating in the first place (READ MORE AND WATCH THE VIDEO HERE).
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Parenting and Nourishment: an important read
Addressing children's nutritional well-being in a trauma-informed way has to include this conversation: “[E]xperts say a lack of time is no excuse [for not cooking],” but the authors believe that when such messages inevitably prove impossible to live up to, mothers bear the brunt of blame for everything from their child’s obesity to their own food insecurity. What will take some of this pressure off moms—and bring us closer to a more just and healthy food system for all? The authors offer...
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Possible cellular pathways for how we develop disease from trauma
This research may one day illuminate how toxic stress damages our metabolic processes and lead to chronic disease. Might this also open an opportunity for good nutrition to promote healing on a cellular level? https://health.ucsd.edu/news/releases/Pages/2018-09-07-chronic-diseases-driven-by-metabolic-dysfunction.aspx?fbclid=IwAR1cXInVmnnyQlW6gU8AU1DJvSS7i4MWX5PaDjVYR3R7u6dG3eEr2l03lTk
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Reframing Health Ethics to Support Liberation
One of my favorite thinkers on trauma-informed care talks about the problem of "healthism." I think it is an important concept to consider. She writes: "Healthism teaches that health is mainly about personal responsibility. It’s a set of beliefs that sees health as an outcome of lifestyle, and the healthcare system..... We need to replace healthism with the message that health emerges from right relationship . The route to health is social action — making sure we all have food, dignity,...
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Scaling Back on Weight as a Measure of Patient Health
by Yoni Freedoff, MD How we talk about weight and health is even more important when people have a history of trauma. Bariatric surgeon, Yoni Freedhoff, talks about how to rethink weight in health care. "Scales do measure the gravitational pull of Earth at a given moment in time. Scales don't measure the presence or absence of health, nor do they measure lifestyle or effort. And for patients, it's useful to note that scales don't measure happiness, success, or self worth, either. ... it's...
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Stress Eating is Life-Affirming and Can Help Us Cope in Troubled Times
https://medium.com/@lucy.aphramor/stress-eating-is-life-affirming-and-can-help-us-cope-in-troubled-times-4a798adf1b73
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Take a Minute to Share?
When it comes to finding tools to help you properly address trauma within the family system, what is the single greatest challenge or frustration you’ve been struggling with?
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The Chefs Redefining Polynesian Cuisine
What a powerful articulation of cooks, chefs and communities attempting to reclaim lost sustenance, identity, and connection to food and place-- lost because of colonization. Marginalized and oppressed communities around the world are trying to reclaim their power, often through food. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/06/t-magazine/polynesian-cuisine.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
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The Second Assault
"Victims of childhood sexual abuse are far more likely to become obese adults. New research shows that early trauma is so damaging that it can disrupt a person’s entire psychology and metabolism -- Women [have] said they felt more physically imposing when they were bigger. They felt their size helped ward off sexual advances from men." https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/12/sexual-abuse-victims-obesity/420186/
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To Head Off Trauma's Legacy, Start Young
Dr. Roy Wade, from the Cobbs Creek Clinic in West Philadelphia, works on his own screening tool to measure young patients "adversity score" -- indicators of abuse, neglect, signs of poverty, racial discrimination, or bullying. "Wade wants to take action because research suggests that the stress of a tough childhood can raise the risk for later disease, mental illness and addiction." https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/03/09/377569414/to-head-off-traumas-legacy-start-young
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Trauma Affects Your Relationship with Food & Your Body [huffingtonpost.com]
When I was invited to deliver the Keynote Speech on Trauma, Food and the Body at the “9th” Annual SCTC Conference in October I immediately pinpointed my biggest area of trauma, sexual abuse. I wrote about my sexual abuse and how it contributed to me developing an eating disorder in my memoir so this was a no brainer for me. Then I began to create my power point presentation. I decided to revisit the ACES test, (adverse childhood experiences), that not only identifies trauma but also...
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Trauma and Nutrition: The FST Nutrition Strategy
Despite the advances of nutritional therapy over the last 30 years, there is often limited to no inclusion of nutrition as part of the trauma treatment for children and families with PTSD. However, diet and nutrition can serve as powerful tools to influence change in both the body and brain of a child and/or family member experiencing trauma.
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Trauma at the Table: Why Kids in Care Have Food Issues
http://www.michigancasa.org/uploads/1/6/4/6/16460156/monica_smith_-_trauma_at_the_table_why_kids_in_care_have_food_issues.pdf
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Trauma, Food Addiction, and “Painful” Pounds [HuffingtonPost.com]
For years I’ve listened to women and men recount an agonizing spectrum of verbal, emotional, and physical abuse and trauma that occurred during their childhood, often continuing through adolescence. Most remember that period in their life as the time when they began to overeat. Neglect, abandonment, isolation, and physical harm usually send young people on a desperate search for a way to numb and soothe their pain. Of course, food is the main accessible and primal reward. Laurie has her...
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Trauma in early childhood boosts the risk of teen obesity, study says [philly.com]
Teenagers who have suffered adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) — such as physical or emotional abuse, or having a parent who is incarcerated or addicted to drugs or alcohol — are at greater risk of being overweight or obese, according to a new study . In fact, the study found that the more kinds of adverse experiences children endured, the more likely they would have excessive weight issues by middle school or high school. “This study adds to our understanding of childhood overweight and...
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Understanding How Trauma Impacts Eating Can Help Us Cope With The Covid-19 Crisis
https://medium.com/@lucy.aphramor/understanding-how-trauma-impacts-eating-can-help-us-cope-with-the-covid-19-crisis-a2f73c60c723
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Welcome to ACES and Nourishment
Adrienne and I are excited to launch this community where anyone can share research, articles, stories and ideas about the connections between food, eating, nutrition, obesity and ACES. As many of you know, the foundational ACES research emerged from an investigation into why participants in an obesity program were dropping out despite initially losing weight. It uncovered how participants' childhood trauma histories affected their weight, risk for metabolic or diet-related disease,...
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Why Emotional Eating Can Be a Consequence of Trauma
Research suggests that trauma can be a cause of emotional eating, or the drive to consume “comfort foods,” to manage the negative emotions directly related to past negative events.
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Why we Need to Talk about Trauma in Public Health Nutrition
When you consider the word trauma in relation to food, health and eating
what does it conjure up? In what ways is trauma relevant to dietetic practice?
What does it even mean? In this article, I briefly introduce the concept of
trauma as used in public health, social justice activism and counselling.
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Why We Need to Talk About Trauma in Public Health Nutrition [lucyaphramor.com]
Link to .PDF of article by Lucy Aphramor, Dietician and Social Action Poet: https://lucyaphramor.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/NHD-Trauma-April-2018.pdf?utm_source=Training+Registration&utm_campaign=dc0bee3aa9-AUTOMATION__2_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_38d9a4f547-dc0bee3aa9-80253031
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Young Women are Reviving Indigenous Food Traditions Online
"For Gladstone, upholding Indigenous food is partly about healing from a history of trauma. The processes of colonialization and the genocide of Native peoples across North America was mirrored by the devastation of the plants and animals that Native Americans had long relied on for sustenance and spiritual companionship........ Gladstone believes that the trauma of genocide and the devastation of food-giving landscapes had a large impact on driving poor health outcomes in her community, as...
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Food and Mood MeetUp in Tacoma
Comment
Re: Why We Need to Talk About Trauma in Public Health Nutrition [lucyaphramor.com]
Laura- Thanks for posting Lucy's article. Yes, all professions need to know more about trauma. And all professions need to know how to screen for food insecurity, housing insecurity, medical care insecurity, domestic violence, racism, addictions and other limiting factors that keep trauma in place and is made visible through the labels of mental health challenges, physical health challenges, incarnation, foster care/dependency to name a few. Kristen
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Re: Food Prescription to Treat (Mental) Illness [NPR]
Whole Foods, Plant-Based, No oil!!! That’s what I believe is the best because it can reverse CAD and Type 2 DM. Plus growing communitiy gardens is a great way to bring back communities to broken communities. And the China Study showed definitively that meat and dairy cause cancer. The less serious medical Iillness, the less stress and the less medicine leading toless trauma.
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Re: Why We Need to Talk About Trauma in Public Health Nutrition [lucyaphramor.com]
Well written article and fantastic articulation of the approach around trauma and dietary consumption and consultation. There are many great points to this article and is a sector that needs to be crucially explored. Pointing out in addition to these strong points, the importance of exploring the types of foods we consume and the scientific insight of its impact on our physiological health, emotional regulation, and behaviour change. As similar to therapeutic context of defining trauma,...
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Re: Food Prescription to Treat (Mental) Illness [NPR]
I am so glad to see articles like this. After 15 years of working with people with histories of trauma. Most have nutritional deficits. These nutritional deficits make it difficult to manage glucose which creates anxiety. When people are getting inadequate protein, minerals, and vitamins it is hard to synthesize neurotransmitters.
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Re: Childhood Trauma Can Impact Our Gut Bacteria
"The children with a history of early caregiving disruptions had distinctly different gut microbiomes from those raised with biological caregivers from birth. Brain scans of all the children also showed that brain activity patterns were correlated with certain bacteria. For example, the children raised by parents had increased gut microbiome diversity, which is linked to the prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain known to help regulate emotions." Food and nutrition is such an important...
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Re: Trauma and Nutrition: The FST Nutrition Strategy
Thanks for sharing this perspective and bringing nutrition into trauma treatment. I am wondering about the use of a behavioral contract to control a child's food intake. Can you share circumstances under which you see the need for behavioral contracts for eating--I only know that they are used when there is significant eating disorder. I personally prefer the principles of Ellyn Satter, an RD and Family Therapist. https://www.ellynsatterinstitute.org/ Could you see applying Satter principles...
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Re: How to Use Mindfulness Meditation to Overcome Emotional Eating [betterhumans.coach.me]
Thanks for this. I am working on integrating mindful practices into nutrition programs. I am curious about how to do this carefully since people who have experienced trauma may have a hard time engaging in mindful practices. I would love to hear from others who have found safe ways to do this with people who might be triggered by some mindfulness activities.
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Re: Trauma and Nutrition: The FST Nutrition Strategy
For the last 15 years, I have worked with people recovering from trauma. After using sugar, alcohol, and drugs to medicate it away. They started using nutrition so that they could stabilize their brain to tolerate working through the trauma in therapy. They began to understand the differences between fatigue (from lack of nutrients, sleep or movement) from depression. Or the difference between hypoglycemia and anxiety. By using nutrition and body awareness they were better able to be curious...
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Re: The Difference Between Being Broke and Being Poor: It’s a recognition that comes in the aisle of a grocery store.
Wow. That was excellently told. I think we need more first person stories like this about people's relationship to food when living in hardship, trauma, or crisis.