The Cognitive Dissonance of Food Issues? (Thin Enough)
“A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.”
James 1:8
As someone who has dealt with all kinds of disordered eating (in example: Anorexia, Bulimia, Binge Overeating), I have dealt with my fair share of cognitive dissonance:
“cognitive dissonance is described as a mental phenomenon in which people unknowingly or subconsciously hold fundamentally conflicting cognitions. Being confronted by situations that create this dissonance or highlight these inconsistencies motivates change in their cognitions or actions to reduce this dissonance, maybe by changing a belief, by explaining something away, or by taking actions that reduce perceived inconsistency.
Relevant items of cognition include people's actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and things in the environment. Cognitive dissonance exists without outward sign, but surfaces through psychological stress when psychological discomfort is created due to persons participating in an action that creates conflicting beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors, or when new information challenges existing beliefs.”
Confused?
Basically, it’s holding at least two completely opposite ideas/experiences, trying to decide which one to believe, as they both appear to carry weight.
And speaking of weight, there is nothing like some cognitive dissonance to really employ some paralyzing torture.
Fear is at its root.
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.”
1 John 4:18
This controversial image of the 1990’s waif supermodel, Kate Moss, exemplifies, to me, the definition of Cognitive Dissonance, as it concerns disordered eating and image issues.
This photo can, indeed, sum up so much of the torture.
(Supposedly, Kate Moss declared she did not have any food, weight, or eating issues; her body was just naturally thin like this).
Nevertheless, I was torn apart by the oppressive confusion and exacting pressures eating disorders are famous for.
…As I sat on the kitchen floor, the open refrigerator door provided the only light in the room. I didn’t want to draw attention to what I was doing. I hovered over that jar of strawberry jam, obsessing about how much I could before my stomach felt too full and “too fat.” I also was racing against time, trying to finish before my family woke up. But for a moment, all that mattered was strawberry jam.
“Whoa! Way too much! You just need enough to get through the day. Keep going and you’re going to get fat!” I told myself this repeatedly. And so I stopped and squelched my self-indulgence, while relocating my self-control. I put away the jam and shut the fridge door. Now what?
Damage assessment: Where would the jam show up on me? I panicked. I had to know. I had chosen to eat it, now I chose to face the consequences…
(Thin Enough Book Excerpt)
And, concerning my struggles with eating disorders, it didn’t happen overnight.
These disorders, filled with torturous contradictions, often get their start in childhood.
And the harmful messages we, as children, hear, inherit, and absorb about ourselves…
“In a study by Laliberte, Boland, and Leichner (1999), these three factors represented the hypothesized family climate for eating disorders: perceptions of the family’s concern for weight and shape, perceptions of the families concern for social appearances, and perceptions of the family’s emphasis on achievement. The combination of appearance and achievement variables identified in this research describes the perfect family—a family that places great emphasis on appearance, family reputation, family identity, and achievement.”
Suzie Csorna, Familial Relationships and Bulimia…
…I remember mom coaxing me into my first diet. All I ate for days straight was pineapple. Al-o-o-ha! It took me at least a good ten to fifteen years before I could enjoy the fruit again. But I trusted Mom. She knew best. After all, I’d seen her go on many diets before. I thought, “If I do this, then I’ll be okay. If I do this, then I’ll make things better.” A diet was the answer…
“40% of 9-year-old girls have dieted.”
Susan Ice, M.D., Medical Director, The Renfrew Center http://www.renfrew.org.
… My first diet ended almost when it started, beginning an endless dieting rollercoaster. Diet after diet would start with this angelic-choir Hallelujah moment, followed by this new revelation that “This is the diet. Diet ye in it.”
Oftentimes, Mom and I would treat dieting as a buddy project. Mom and I would always start on what day? Monday! Yes, Monday was always the day of the fresh start, the answer. Whenever Mom and I were inspired to go on a diet, we’d have one last Sunday blowout, eating all of the “bad food” to get it out of our systems… On Monday, there would be commitment and enthusiasm! We’d throw out all the junk food and swear it off forever. We’d institute an exercise program, complete with graph paper and gold stars. Together, we would begin arm circle exercises, bicycle kicks and sit-ups. Looking back, I find it fitting that these exercises were all movement and no destination… There would also be the measurement, weighing, and counting of ingredients and calories. Mom and I even had our own little notepads, recording our daily menus…
(Thin Enough Book Excerpt)
That set the template. And it only became more confusing from there.
“For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice: but what I hate, that I do.”
Romans 7:15
It only became… more double minded from there?
“A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.”
James 1:8
For so many of us out there, food is not just food.
“Is not life more than food?”
Matthew 6:25
It is, seemingly, anything and everything else.
It is the “wrong” answer.
“Do not be carried along by various and strange teachings; for it is good for the heart to be confirmed by grace, not by foods, in which those walking were not profited.”
Hebrews 13:9
“Consuming,” it can be asserted, is a “strange teaching” when we give it more power than it deserves. We make it an idol. We, in our own unique ways, can see consuming as the answer.
And that’s what we do with food, right? We consume it.
Until we decide that we need to restrict and starve instead.
Diet culture is rife with that.
“Crash diets,” after all. They can quickly spiral into Anorexia, especially.
…I took control. “All right,” I said to myself, “if I can’t have the love, the worthiness, the me that I want, I’ll make it on my own.” Control became the name of the game now...
…The summer after my senior year of high school became my “put up or shut up” summer. As I prepared for college, I had a lot to prove... During my entire adolescence, I had been the fat girl, the “good friend,” the funny sidekick to the beautiful girls. But that would all change this summer. So I started another diet. At eighteen, I’d had years of failure at diet and exercise programs. But this time I was determined—determined to re-invent myself for my new life at college…
…Each comment, lost pound, and lost inch gave me more of an incentive. As I lost weight, I found myself always in need of a new goal… I eventually became convinced that death—at least the look of starvation—was beautiful. I was envying the “beauty,” the look of the malnourished, the tortured—even those in concentration camps…
…It still wasn’t good enough… I felt that the weight, the fat wasn’t coming off quick enough…
…I still kept going. I had to. Progress—just a few more pounds, then I’ll be done. So I’d continue every morning: six hours of boot camp torture on little or no food or water. I had gotten to the point now where I feared drinking water would make me fat…
(Thin Enough Book Excerpt)
Each one led astray…
“We all like sheep have gone astray, we have turned, each man to his own way...”
Isaiah 53:6
Let’s briefly return to the Kate Moss photo.
My plummet into Anorexia and its emaciation happened before the image of the waif supermodel.
Yet, it fully embodied my emotional, spiritual, and mental state.
At the height of my emaciation, while fully miserable, I still felt this complicated victory, echoing Moss’s t-shirt: “I Beat Obesity.”
What, indeed, could signal Obesity’s defeat better than a two-digit, emaciated frame?
I thought I was defiant and successful, proclaiming it, convincing everyone who dared to look at me.
The reality?
“A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.”
James 1:8
I was at war.
“But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin being in my members.”
Romans 7:23
…Suddenly I wanted food right now!... I was nervous. This went against everything I’d been working for. Do something on my forbidden list? Put weight on instead of taking it off? I would move closer to the fat, unacceptable me that I was trying so hard not to be. But my hunger went beyond a growling stomach...
…Nothing else mattered anymore. Everything else was fuzzy around me: right and wrong, other people, God, consequences. Just food mattered…
…Feasting on boxes of rice and crackers, granola bars, fistfuls of cereals, and ice cream bars felt wonderful. But I began to panic. Where would all of this show up on me? My straight hips? My twenty-inch waist? My hollow cheekbones? I wanted to protect the product of my hard work. Still, I couldn’t stop eating. Every time, I repeated my new vow, “I’ll do this just one time.” One time became always…
…I could never eat enough food, but it was always way too much for me to handle. I’d gorge, binge, pig out—whatever you want to call it. The results were still the same: overextended, rock-hard stomach, severe pain and discomfort, and always the sense of failure, shame, and disgust. My heart pounded with panic as I gulped. My hands shook as I stuffed my mouth with enormous quantities of food…
(Thin Enough Book Excerpt)
“…‘How long will you waver between two opinions?’...”
1 Kings 18:21
Wavering between two extreme, harmful opinions.
One kind of image pursued, warring, over another.
One kind of eating behavior warring against another.
Push-pull. Stop-start.
That’s part of the torture of cognitive dissonance; that’s part of the pain of disordered eating, no matter what strain it may be.
So, right here, are you expecting me to give a short, tidy solution?
Yes and no.
The Most High, certainly, in the “yes” group.
And in the more challenging “no” category?
Well, our flawed nature, for starters.
Sound hopeless?
Not entirely.
“I will be satisfied, as with the richest of foods…”
Psalm 63:5
That’s quite an ambitious promise, isn’t it?
Nevertheless, His Promises do not come back void (Isaiah 55:11).
Because we need to deal with food and our bodies daily, it is challenging, constantly bringing about decision after decision about our behaviors.
It’s not just “one and done.”
Therefore, with eyes and hearts focused on Him, bit by bit, we can engage in healthier ways…
“You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed upon you, for he trusts you.”
Psalm 56:3
And most of the time, it is a process.
Healing is not just instant. Healing is lifelong, continuous.
And His healing?
There is NOTHING double minded about it!
Let’s pray.
Abba,
I come to You, through Our Shepherd.
Your only begotten Son, Our Savior, יֵשׁוּעַ.
You know how torn and double minded I feel about food and my own body.
You know how I have struggled and idolized; You know how I have sinned.
You know how I have abused my own body.
Forgive me; Help me.
I am so conflicted in my behaviors; I’m at war with myself about what to do.
I have misused food to take it out on myself.
This breaks Your heart and is not Your Will for me.
I need You help.
I don’t know how to change for the better, for the healthier.
Help me.
Help me to be of one mind, in alignment with Your Love and Your Spirit concerning me.
Only You can truly help me, even right now.
Meet me where I am, then, right now.
Thank You.
Amen.
Copyright © 2026 by Sheryle Cruse
