Older, wiser – and still battling body image and eating? We can help.

00:00:02 Yvie
This podcast is recorded and produced on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to their elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who may be listening.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Let’s Talk. When we think about body image and eating disorders, the conversation often centres on teens and young adults.

00:00:32 Yvie
But what happens as we age? How do body image concerns and eating disorders manifest in midlife and beyond? First up, we’re joined by Associate Professor Gemma Sharp, a leading expert in eating disorders and body image from Monash University, and Kelly Gryphon, a lived experience advocate for a conversation around the unique challenges of eating disorders and ageing and how societal expectations and life transitions can play a role.

00:01:03 Yvie
And finally, we’ll hear from Sue Cody, who will share her story of experiencing a relapse during perimenopause and the challenges she faced while seeking help highlighting the realities of addressing an eating disorder later in life.

Thank you all for joining us. Can we please start by telling us who you are and a little bit about your journey with body image and eating disorders over the years?

00:01:32 Yvie
Gemma, let’s start with you.

00:01:34 Gemma
Hi, I’m Gemma. I’m a professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Queensland. I’ve been lucky enough to be in the body image and eating disorder field of research for about gosh, 13 years now. That time has flown alone. It’s an area I’ve always been passionate about, though lucky enough to be leading a research team and also a career as a clinical psychologist.

00:01:59 Gemma
I love being able to combine both the research and clinical work.

00:02:03 Kelly
Look, thank you very, very much for having me. I have lived experience as a male with an eating disorder in my early 40s, late 40s, now fully recovered. And now what I do is try and spend my time as well, advocating for those with either eating disorders, body image issues, but also males and also older people that might come across some challenges in this space as well.

00:02:31 Yvie
So, to start, I’d like to hear from you. Why do you think body image and eating disorders in older adults are often overlooked or misunderstood? And do you have any specific examples of this that you’ve experienced? Gemma, can we start with you?

00:02:47 Gemma
Yeah. Unfortunately, I hear this all the time, both in my research life and life as a clinician, sadly. So I often hear stories that people have been told by health professionals. Surely you’ve grown out of that by now. This is much more a young person’s illness. Why are you still behaving in this manner.

00:03:08 Gemma
So I suppose, really, unfortunately, unfortunately, stigmatising and diminishing the person’s experience because they are a slightly older person presenting with an eating disorder. It might even be the first time they’re presenting with an eating disorder or it might be long standing. But it always really breaks my heart to hear that kind of response when we know that reaching out for support for an eating disorder at any age is difficult, never mind as someone who’s a little bit more advanced in age and they might not ever go back for support if that’s the response they receive.

00:03:45 Gemma
So I suppose I’m lucky that at least by the time they’ve got to me, they’ve made a commitment to seeking further support. And I always try and really validate that it’s never too late to seek support.

00:03:57 Yvie
And Kelly.

00:03:58 Kelly
Yeah, absolutely. Mental health doesn’t have an age discrimination, right. It doesn’t know what your age is, it doesn’t know what part of, you know, life cycle you’re in and where you’re at in terms of stage of life and your circumstances. All you know at any age is that you’re going through something that’s challenging and something that’s causing you a significant amount of mental health issues.

00:04:23 Kelly
I only know from lived experience, obviously, and speaking to others as well, that it was very, very daunting as somebody that was 40 years of age going, hang on a minute, I have an eating disorder. Like, I knew that there was something wrong. I knew that I had some mental health challenges around body image and challenges with what I was doing in terms of my behaviour.

00:04:48 Kelly
But to go, hang on a second. Firstly, I’m male, Secondly, I’m over 40. I thought this was know somebody that. Or a challenge, I suppose, more than anything else for somebody that was a lot younger. Why am I now going through this? This isn’t seem real, particularly because I. I’ve got teenage daughters as well, that I was very mindful around what was going on as well, so.

00:05:12 Kelly
And even trying to get support was. Was quite interesting. I remember my first instance of reaching out to get support and again it was. I’m. I’m not the typical stereotype, which is terrible to say in the outset, but the reality was that, yeah, the information that was presented back to me was very much for somebody that was a lot younger and things like that.

00:05:35 Kelly
So, Gemma, I’m completely alone with you. It breaks my heart that, to hear anybody of any age going through this, for one thing, but secondary somebody of an older age to go, yeah, surely you’ve Grown out of this. Surely this isn’t, you know, what you think it is. It absolutely is. Like, it’s, it doesn’t know what your age is.

00:05:57 Yvie
I often think of people who are older who may be going to ask for help for the very first time. A lot of people who have developed an eating disorder in their younger life, it already has that stigma. So, you know, going to your doctor is hard enough, but if you have never done it and you finally decided, you know, I’m gonna get the help I need to be shut down, like that would be extremely debilitating that there is such a high mortality rate when it comes to eating disorders.

00:06:31 Yvie
And so that would only affect you, the older you get if an eating disorder isn’t addressed. Is that correct?

00:06:38 Gemma
Absolutely. So a long standing eating disorder. So people have been experiencing physical complications as well as mental complications for a long time. It does shorten one’s life expectancy. Absolutely. But even more so, just quality of life while people are living. Like just the impacts on themselves, their families, their working lives, social lives, everything.

00:07:05 Gemma
And eating disorder impacts all facets of life. And unfortunately, too many people lose their lives to eating disorders.

00:07:13 Yvie
So Gemma, in your work, what unique challenges do older adults face compared to younger individuals when seeking help?

00:07:23 Gemma
Yeah, so just even the first conversation, seeking help, not being believed, not getting appropriate testing, not being referred on. But even when they do get referred on, sometimes the services are very youth focused. So people will tell me they feel like a complete fish out of water in these services. They’re like, they don’t know what to do with me.

00:07:46 Gemma
They just focus on the young ones. There’s nothing for me. So, okay, then I have to go privately. Well, do I have the money to pay for private care? Eating disorders are incredibly expensive. So it’s just barriers at every step of the way for, for people who are a bit older than the norm.

00:08:08 Yvie
And what do you, as the professional, the expert, what are you doing to kind of help in that, in that realm?

00:08:16 Gemma
So I suppose what my team has been working on specifically in the last couple of years is the experience of midlife eating disorders, particularly the intersection with the, the menopause trans. That’s not to say that anyone during midlife should absolutely get the eating disorder care they deserve. But it is believed that there’s a higher risk period around that menopause transition.

00:08:42 Gemma
And it was not really known by many health professionals or researchers. So we were like, hey, someone needs to do something in this space to help all these people. So we set about developing what we believe is a world first online comprehensive course to explain what’s going on to people with a lived experience, their loved ones and also health professionals with that intersection of eating disorders and menopause.

00:09:08 Gemma
It’s kindly hosted by the Eating Disorders Victoria Learned platform. We’re very grateful to them for hosting this for us. but there’s so much expansion to be done here to help people in midlife who are experiencing eating disorders.

00:09:29 Yvie
So that course is for anyone or is it for just professionals?

00:09:34 Gemma
It’s for absolutely anyone. So we set it up for if you’re supporting someone through the menopause transition, so you’re a partner, a friend, you can absolutely log on experiencing it yourself as well. We actually co designed with people with a lived experience experience as all of these materials should be. And I can assure you it was actually some of the most fun research I’ve ever had the pleasure of leading.

00:10:00 Gemma
And I am so grateful to all those wonderful people who contributed.

00:10:03 Yvie
I’d like to say personally thank you so much for developing this course.

00:10:08 Gemma
The honour is all mine, really. As I said, it was such a joy to do and we know we’re having an impact, but there’s so much more to be done.

00:10:16 Yvie
It’s only going to get bigger and better, right?

00:10:18 Gemma
We hope so. That’s definitely our plan.

00:10:21 Yvie
You know, we’re talking about menopause and eating disorders, but let’s go back to you, Kelly, because you don’t get menopause, but men do get eating disorders. So can you tell us a bit about your personal experience and your story?

00:10:39 Kelly
Yeah, absolutely. And Gemma, you touched on some amazing points there. I’d love to circle back on some stuff, but I’ll share my story. So when I was sort of mid-30s, thereabouts, I got into the gym. I always had a scenario in my own body image issue where I was not necessarily the biggest guy in the world.

00:11:05 Kelly
I was certainly probably the smallest. I’m quite short and I was very skinny as a kid and growing up and things like that. So for me, body image was just rife all through my teenage years, all through my early 20s. I started hitting the gym and I started to develop, which is actually quite nice.

00:11:23 Kelly
For me, it was a flip of the switch. The problem was it then got to a stage where it got to a point where it wasn’t just going to the gym for fun, it was more of a routine. It was very much, I have to do this. So my exercise routine, my eating Routine was absolutely distorted in that manner.

00:11:47 Kelly
I then went down the path of bodybuilding. So for me, getting a little bit of that gratification of size and muscle and so on, it just got worse and worse and worse and compounded even further. I did two bodybuilding competitions and for anyone that started bodybuilding competition, you know how exceptionally unhealthy that process is.

00:12:10 Kelly
It nearly destroyed me. Well, certainly the first time was challenging, the second time absolutely nearly killed me. And that’s when the worst part of my eating just sort of kicked in. So I had multiple weeks in hospital. My body got to a point where it was eating my liver because I just didn’t have any other reserves.

00:12:31 Kelly
I lost all my muscle. So everything that I’d worked hard for, so called hard for, I lost and sort of went back. So that just spiralled even further. I separated from my wife at the time. Thankfully we’re back together now. Yeah, I, to that point nearly died numerous times, spent numerous times in hospital, got zero support.

00:12:53 Kelly
To your point, Gemma, those services are not designed for somebody of early 40s. It just wasn’t there. I lost my job, lost my house. I wasn’t living on the streets obviously, but I was certainly in a very dire strait until I got myself out of this. Unfortunately, the support that I so called received from professionals had no clue around what was going on inside my head.

00:13:21 Kelly
All they were looking at was behaviour. Behaviour wasn’t driving this. It was the value proposition that I was displaying, well, that I was replaying in my head. And so once I figured all that out and started to get my life back in order, everything started to change. And Gemma, you rightly pointed out the physical demands, the like, not only is going through the worst part of when I had an eating disorder, that is beyond painful.

00:13:50 Kelly
The pain that it takes to come out of that, the physical pain, mental pain is one thing and you have to get through that. The physical changes and demands of my body during that time. I had stress fractures in my feet, I had oedema in both sides, I could barely walk. I had massive digestive issues, lost hormones, a whole bunch of stuff.

00:14:17 Kelly
That’s my story. I’m fully recovered now, Body’s great, body’s very, very healthy.

00:14:21 Yvie
I was gonna ask on that, Kelly, do you have any physical ailments that have, you know, followed you?

00:14:28 Kelly
Yeah, yeah, great, great question. So I get my bloods done every six months purely to make sure that kidney function, liver function, prostate, all of those sorts of things. You’re right, I don’t have menopause. But I need to make sure that health wise, still you do have hormones. I do have hormones. I am also on testosterone replacement therapy, so trt, because during that time I completely had none.

00:14:54 Yvie
So that was what made you lose your testosterone?

00:14:58 Kelly
Yes.

00:14:59 Yvie
That is really fascinating and very important information.

00:15:04 Kelly
Absolutely. And it wasn’t until I started in my early phase of recovery realising and you’re getting blunt tests and, and whatnot and going, I have no testosterone. Once I got my testosterone function going back into the body through trt, I started to feel very different. I was like, oh, I’m starting to feel alive again.

00:15:25 Kelly
And that once that happened and I got hormone balances, right, liver function kicked back in, kidney function perfect. Everything now is perfect. It just goes to show that their hormone rebalance, the effect that that had on my mental health. Dramatic.

00:16:12 Yvie
Gemma, do you have anything that you’d like to add to Kelly’s story?

00:16:18 Gemma
Just a huge thank you to Kelly for advocating and sharing his story. Particularly that sort of intersectionality of being a little bit older and also a male and just health professionals throwing their hands up in the air going, I’ve got no idea what to do here. And I think as health professionals we need to sit with not knowing sometimes and being uncomfortable and just continuing to be there, continuing to support because that sometimes is all you can do.

00:16:48 Gemma
And I, Kelly, feel free to disagree but sometimes that, that is all that’s needed sometimes in that moment, obviously we’re working towards cures and things like that, but just abandoning the person, that’s the worst thing you can do.

00:17:02 Kelly
I completely agree with you and I’ll just sort of echo on that as well, is the behaviour that is being displayed is a symptom, it’s not the root cause. Try and to your point, Gemma, like really listen to the person and support the person because ultimately we’re just people going through some challenges.

00:17:20 Kelly
All right, so figure out what is behind the scenes that’s actually happening to that person. It was very clear, like it’s now very clear to me what was going on. Unfortunately, health professionals, psychologists, psychiatrists, no idea, weren’t interested kind of their job, I thought so I Thought so, definitely, yeah.

00:17:45 Yvie
It blows my mind.

00:17:47 Gemma
We’re sort of, I think sometimes we think we’re meant to have all the answers and be like these super competent people. And of course that’s what you try to be most of the time. But medicine doesn’t have all the answers. And I suppose because I’m quite curious, as a researcher, I’m okay to sit in that uncertainty, but I just encourage all the health professionals listening in and everyone else to it’s okay to be uncertain, it’s not okay to abandon.

00:18:19 Yvie
We are having a guest coming on later in the show that we couldn’t have live with us right now. But Gemma, you do know her and she had her own personal experience with a GP that dismissed her and we will let her tell that story. But do you or have you personally experienced anything like that or have any stories like that?

00:18:44 Gemma
I should say, Evie, it’s an absolute honour to know sue and I know that people really, really enjoy hearing from her. Unfortunately, I hear this far too much, this kind of story about being, I suppose, not heard or their concerns being dismissed by gps. Gps have a very difficult job. I want that to be made clear.

00:19:05 Gemma
They work under very challenging conditions and I think more support, more funding for their education, more understanding will really help everyone get the care that they need. And I think, as we’ve been chatting about, just listening to people is a huge deal. It’s not always jumping in with a solution straight away, it’s just hearing the person out who’s in front of you.

00:19:31 Yvie
Absolutely. And letting like a practise manager know that something didn’t go quite as you wanted it or needed it to in your consultation. Do you see that as a good thing?

00:19:48 Gemma
I think it can’t hurt. And I think, you know, a good practise manager will be across the flow of patients and anyone who should potentially be followed up, maybe by, maybe by a nursing. Even if the doctor cannot follow them up, sometimes it’s slightly easier to get in with a nurse for follow up appointments.

00:20:08 Gemma
So I think it’s about utilising the team.

00:20:10 Yvie
Well, yeah, great. Very good advice. Kelly, with lived experience, do you have anything to add?

00:20:18 Kelly
Yeah, I wouldn’t say that I had a terrible experience, but during, as I was sort of navigating what was going on with me, there was just a lot of uneducation or miseducation. They just didn’t quite know what I was dealing with or anything like that. But it was, I would say it’s probably worse as I was going through like recovery and they really did not have a clue about how to help and what I was physically going through, mentally going through, and just looking at all the different things that were going on inside my body.

00:20:48 Kelly
There was just a lot of misinformation around or uneducated, you know, thoughts that were that I was sort of hearing and saying as well. So it wasn’t a terrible experience. But I had to navigate for me personally, what I was expecting to have at each of the stages for me as. As I was going through recovery.

00:21:07 Yvie
I think that’s a really interesting point, you know, you having to navigate. I often tell my followers when we talk about these kind of things, you have to advocate for yourself. And unfortunately, it’s a reality. And, you know, there’s something, you know, that we may not be comfortable with. There’s a lot of people who simply.

00:21:30 Yvie
They don’t want to rock boats. They don’t want to say anything. They don’t want to be disliked. You know, they’re already having so many problems.

00:21:37 Gemma
I think of that power differential, Evie, between a doctor and a patient. It’s just huge. Like, how. How comfortable do we feel with disagreeing with people like this? It’s incredibly challenging. And I think, yeah, I mean, thank you, Kelly, for telling people that they can advocate for themselves or suggesting to bring along someone else who they feel might be able to support them with that.

00:22:02 Gemma
And I think just flipping this conversation, like, working with parents quite a bit recently, my gosh, they are tough cookies, and they’ve had to be to get help for their child. And, you know, people in midlife don’t always have their mum and dad to come along. An advocate.

00:22:18 Kelly
No, we don’t exactly.

00:22:21 Gemma
So I understand that it’s. It’s really, really hard. And you know what? Maybe it’s your psychologist, maybe it’s your dietitian, maybe it’s your partner, maybe it’s your friend. It can be anyone who can come along and be with you and say, hey, I don’t understand that. That doesn’t sound right to me. That’s not what my person here is asking about.

00:22:40 Kelly
Exactly. And that’s a really good point. Like, you know how you’re feeling. All right? So you have to be the advocate for you. You have to be the voice. But to your point, if that’s not the personality type that you are, that’s fine. Have somebody with you that can go now. You know what?

00:22:55 Kelly
We’re not leaving until this thing gets addressed in this way. Because you know what? You kind of have a fair idea around what you might need, but you just need direction and you need someone to believe. Yeah, that’s the key point.

00:23:10 Yvie
And that’s why it’s so incredibly important to talk to your loved ones, even if it’s just one person that can be in your corner. If you find it difficult to talk to anyone, talking to one person can give you that confidence to talk to the professional. And taking them with you can also be incredibly important.

00:23:30 Yvie
It’s amazing how much we will do for another person that we won’t do for ourselves. So if you maybe if we start looking at ourselves as, you know, that friend that, you know, how would, what would you do if this was happening to your best friend, your child, your parent, your partner? That might be some good advice as well.

00:23:52 Yvie
So I’d just like to dive into societal expectations and ageism. I’d like to hear how unrealistic beauty standards and cultural narratives about ageing may have affected you personally. Personally or the people that you’ve worked with. Gemma, let’s start with you. How can we challenge these societal ideals on a broader scale?

00:24:15 Gemma
Oh, Evie, I love this question. Like something we’re still working on. Definitely. And I, I love reflecting on this because I think in different cultures, age is not seen as such a negative thing, is it? Like, I’m just thinking, say in Japan, like, they’re not like, ah, old people suck. In fact, they have like a public holiday just to celebrate older people.

00:24:39 Gemma
Wonderful. I got to live there for a little while in the past and I was like, yay, old people. Thanks for the day off. So I think, I think, you know, Western society, we don’t tend to view ageing quite as positively. But I think I will say even in those countries where ageing is sort of less stigmatised, no one is sort of saying, I want to look like an 80 year old.

00:25:06 Gemma
Like, in terms of appearance, it’s still very youth focused. And I think it’s really hard to shift something that’s a little bit evolutionarily ingrained, that youth health, being able to reproduce. That is a bit ingrained in the old brains. However, I think, and I’m very glad that people are living longer and we’re seeing more people in the workforce, more people in politics, particularly older folks in the States holding very important roles.

00:25:42 Gemma
But I think if we have more representation that older people are productive members of society, which they absolutely are, less focus on appearance, even though that is hard to do. But I think just having older people in advertising, having older people in fashion campaigns, having older people in all Facets of life that are important because we know when we show that diversity of age, diversity of size, diversity of ethnicity, that it can shift people’s mindsets.

00:26:12 Gemma
It’s not a quick process, but we’ve shown that in our research. So I think, yes, just actually championing people who are more advanced in age, rather than having a kind of deficit model that I think we really focus on is ageing, seems to be a lot about loss, particularly in Western society. So I don’t think that answered your question, Evie.

00:26:34 Gemma
I do really apologise there, but it’s a tough thing to change in a short time.

00:26:41 Yvie
It certainly is. And I think that in a broad sense, which is what I did ask. So you did answer quite well. In a broad sense, you know, like Kelly said, it’s. It’s not the behaviours, you know, the root. And that, in a broad sense is what it’s all about us, you know, not looking at ageing as a positive.

00:27:02 Yvie
Because what comes with ageing, the most important thing is wisdom and experience. And when you honour that kind of thing, which a lot of cultures do and for some reason we don’t. Kelly, for men listening today who might feel ashamed or isolated, what would you say to encourage them to make that first step?

00:27:27 Kelly
Okay, so it’s really important, reach out, have a voice. And if you’re getting discouraged or you’re getting pushback from a GP or whoever you’re reaching out to, from a support perspective, make sure that you continue to be your biggest voice and your biggest advocate. And if you can’t be, grab a loved one and go, please be my voice with me.

00:27:50 Kelly
I’m struggling, right? It’s okay to admit that you’re struggling, but it’s even better to go and get support. So please be vocal, please continue to do so. And if. If all we do is save one person. Right, That’s. That’s great.

00:28:07 Yvie
Yeah. One person saving one person. Not bad.

00:28:10 Kelly
100%. 100%. The mortality rate in eating disorders in anything is way too high. So please reach out, please don’t feel ashamed and, yeah, go get support.

00:28:24 Yvie
Well said. And Gemma, I’m going to finish with you because we’ve already touched on your course, but I think, you know, talking solutions, solutions.

00:28:34 Gemma
So, unfortunately, we still don’t know a lot about eating disorders and I absolutely love researching them. And I think what I would do is a bit of a call to action for people to contribute to research however they can, whether it’s doing a survey, being part of a focus group, kicking a few Bucks our way.

00:28:54 Gemma
Of course, research is going to say that the only way we can give better care is to know what’s causing it and design better treatments. And then health professionals will be, I’ll give you this, this will make you feel better. And then we can finally cure eating disorders. That would be my dream.

00:29:37 Kelly
Can I just add one thing there? Sorry. Because Gemma, you rightly pointed out the lived experience and reaching out and things like that. The other thing that I just sort of preface there as well is don’t necessarily focus on the behaviour, the thing that they’re doing. Think about why you’re doing it. Look inside, do a bit of self reflection and even with a loved one as well and think about, you know, for me personally, I can only talk about myself.

00:30:06 Kelly
Right. I’m not sure about everybody else, but for me it was about how I valued myself. Just reach inside it and figure out why, what is driving this as well. So thank and thank you, Gemma, for, you know, everything that you guys do. It’s amazing.

00:30:20 Gemma
Not at all, Kelly. And shout out to all of our lived experience people who help already help us with research every single day. You are what is pushing forward innovations in this field. So thank you and please keep it up. Obviously we hope you’re having a good time with us researchers and clinicians.

00:30:39 Gemma
But yeah, the lived experience input means everything.

00:30:42 Yvie
Thank you so much, Gemma. And this is a great shout out and call out for people who, you know, want to help in that way. It’s anonymous.

00:30:51 Gemma
Absolutely. Oh, gosh. Anonymous Confidential. Come under a different name if you like. Never have to turn your screen on if you don’t want to. Yeah, it’s more what you have to say about your experience than who you are. Of course. I mean, we find wonderful people like Kelly who are willing to lend their name and that’s amazing as well.

00:31:16 Gemma
But you certainly, if you don’t feel comfortable doing that, that’s completely fine. Our job is to make you feel comfortable sharing your story.

00:31:24 Yvie
Great. Well, I think we can leave it at that. Thank you so much for coming on the let’s Talk podcast. Thank you so much for joining me. Just want to say thank you. Thank you both so much.

00:31:35 Kelly
Well, thank you for allowing us to have a voice. It’s, it’s beyond appreciated.

00:31:40 Gemma
Absolutely. Yvie. I, I was thrilled to see this invitation come.

00:31:49 Yvie
Next, we’re joined by 55 year old Sue Cody, who opens up about how life changes, including motherhood and menopause, contributed to the onset of her eating disorder later in life. I began our conversation by asking sue to share a bit about her journey.

00:32:08 Sue
So my eating disorder journey began back in my early 20s when I first found love. And I thought m aybe if I lost a little bit of weight, you might like me a bit mo re. And then it just kind of spiralled from there and I was stuck in with bulimia till my 30s. Like I got pregnant at 30 and that was kind of a little bit of a wake up call to me and it sort of faded into the background a bit during motherhood, but like when things were a bit stressful during that time, it would rear its ugly head, but I was able to deal with it.

00:32:49 Sue
And then in my early 50s, apparently I was entered this so called perimenopause, which I’d never heard of before. And like there was massive changes in my body. And also my daughter left home to go to uni and she was like my best friend. I know we’re not supposed to be best friends with our children, but my husband worked at nights, so it was just me and her at nighttime.

00:33:15 Sue
So yeah, we did everything together and then she was like gone. And I really, really struggled with that. And I think maybe Covid had a little bit to do with it as well. I’ve always had anxiety and depression, but it seemed to get stronger at this time and I attempted suicide. And then upon leaving hospital, it was like something clicked.

00:33:36 Sue
Anorexia just became a part of me. And I think looking back, maybe that was my coping mechanism for dealing with everything. Like if I could focus on my eating rather than everything else going on, it would just be easier. And then I went down that path for the next four years. I think at the moment you could say that I’m in quasi recovery.

00:33:57 Sue
Like I’m getting there, but not quite there yet.

00:34:00 Yvie
Okay, so you’re getting, you’re getting professional help now?

00:34:04 Sue
Yeah.

00:34:05 Yvie
Tell me about your GP experience.

00:34:08 Sue
I’m due to have. I think it’s a gastroctomy or something where they explored down into your stomach because I have an ulcer because of the eating disorder. And I went to make the appointment and he asked about My health. And I said, oh, I’m in recovery from anorexia. And he just looked at me and he goes, oh, I thought that was only a young girl’s disease.

00:34:30 Sue
And I just like, rolled my eyes and said, no, anyone can get it. And then he said, how are you going? And I said, yeah, I’m getting there. And he goes, well, you look healthy, so you don’t look like you’ve got it anymore. And then I also had to say, you can be of a normal weight and still have an eating disorder.

00:34:45 Sue
That typical stereotype. Look, it doesn’t really exist.

00:34:50 Yvie
So you were educating him and then what happened?

00:34:53 Sue
Well, I went home and stewed on it and then wrote a complaint to the hospital and I got feedback just the last couple of days and they’re going to re educate him and all the other members in that clinic there as well. Even if I only educate, help educate three people, that’s three more people that know better than what they did beforehand.

00:35:14 Yvie
Tell me about how you came to know Gemma. Professor Gemma Sharp.

00:35:21 Sue
So I think it was on Instagram, there was an advertisement for they were after people to do some research into the link between menopause and eating disorders. And I thought, well, I ticked that box. So I applied to do the research and there were Three or four workshops that we had to do with her and, and some interviews.

00:35:40 Sue
So I helped with that from day dot. And that information has all been released. I think it’s accessible through edv maybe. Yeah, it is, yeah.

00:35:49 Yvie
As far as eating disorders and body image and ageism, what would you like to say to, you know, anyone who’s listening who may feel like it’s happening to them for the first time, for the second time, and they’re worried that, number one, there’s no one to talk to and number two, if there is, they’re going to be not listened to because of the stigma around eating disorders.

00:36:14 Yvie
Number, you know, to start with, let alone, you know, having it at an older age and being told that it’s a young person’s thing.

00:36:23 Sue
Well, I’m quite sure that they would be feeling like I did that at my age. I shouldn’t be doing something so stupid and vain and like, I should have my life sorted out and be focused on the important things in life. But it can happen to anyone at any age. And it’s no different to if you’re 10, 20, 60, or even 80, like, it’s still a real thing and you’d be very surprised, like, if you do start asking for help and doing some research.

00:36:56 Sue
How many other older, more mature people there are out there that are suffering. And you’re not alone.

00:37:02 Yvie
Something we spoke about with Kelly and Gemma earlier was advocating for yourself, how we would do it for our child or our children. As a parent, you go into a doctor’s office and you fight for them, but often we don’t do that for ourselves. And I think that is something that is really important, to see yourself as a loved one and say, if I to yourself, if I was doing this for my child, for my partner, for my parent, for my friend, even, I have to be able to do this for myself.

00:37:36 Sue
Yeah. That’s the message that I get from the professionals that I sought to get help from that. Like, I am just as important as anyone else and I need to get the help for myself because I’m just as important as anyone else.

00:37:50 Yvie
Yeah, you are. And did you find that the menopause and the perimenopause coming into it, the. The changes that was. That you were going through, do you think that that was a catalyst or you think that, you know, because there was a few things happening for you. What was the menopausal changes that really, you know, made you start to, I guess, awaken that eating disorder again?

00:38:16 Sue
I think the big thing was the weight gain. Yeah. It just totally freaked me out and I couldn’t deal with it.

00:38:47 Yvie
And then, you know, to be told, you need to look out for that. Look after that, you know, all of these different kind of diets and, you know, all those evil kind of things, often being shrouded in health, simply don’t work.

00:39:06 Sue
It just wouldn’t shift until I, like, spiralled into anorexia.

00:39:15 Yvie
Yeah.

00:39:15 Gemma
Wow.

00:39:16 Yvie
I mean, and that’s really pushing the envelope, isn’t it, to make it happen, which is just, you know, can be so dangerous on your body, as, you know. Thank you so much, Sue.

00:39:27 Sue
Thank you. Can I just say how important it is to have a peer mentoring programme? And it was just so valuable to be able to speak to someone who’s been there, done that and come out the other side. It just gives you so much hope. And if we can get programmes like that everywhere and have people involved of all different ages, I feel like more older people would be willing to enter these programmes if they know that they can be linked with someone more their age rather than being with someone who’s younger.

00:39:58 Yvie
Yeah, that’s great. That’s really great advice. Thank you so much, sue, for your time.

00:40:04 Sue
Thank you for having me.

00:40:09 Yvie
Today’s conversation is a powerful reminder that eating disorders and body image issues don’t have an expiration date. If you or someone you know is struggling, please know that support is available. The Butterfly foundation is here to help with resources tailored for every stage of life. Remember, healing is possible, no matter your age or circumstance.

00:40:34 Yvie
Thank you to Gemma, Kelly and Sue for your openness and wisdom. To find out more about today’s episode, cheque out the helpful links in the show notes and on Butterfly’s website. Just head to butterfly.org aupodcast and click through to this episode. Let’s Talk is produced for the Butterfly foundation by Yvie Jones and Annette Staglieno from Classic Me Productions with the support of the Waratah Education Foundation.

00:41:04 Yvie
Our executive producer is Camilla Becket, with support from Melissa Wilton and Kate Mulray.

00:00:02 Yvie
This podcast is recorded and produced on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to their elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who may be listening. Hello, and welcome to another episode of let’s Talk. When we think about body image and eating disorders, the conversation often centers on teens and young adults.

00:00:32 Yvie
But what happens as we age? How do body image concerns and eating disorders manifest in midlife and beyond? First up, we’re joined by Associate Professor Gemma Sharp, a leading expert in eating disorders and body image from Monash University, and Kelly Griffin, a lived experience advocate for a conversation around the unique challenges of eating disorders and aging and how societal expectations and life transitions can play a role.

00:01:03 Yvie
And finally, we’ll hear from Sue Cody, who will share her story of experiencing a relapse during perimenopause and the challenges she faced while seeking help highlighting the realities of addressing an eating disorder later in life. Thank you all for joining us. Can we please start by you telling us who you are and a little bit about your journey with body image and eating disorders over the years?

00:01:32 Yvie
Gemma, let’s start with you.

00:01:34 Gemma
Hi, I’m Gemma. I’m a professor in the School of Psychology at University of Queensland. I’ve been lucky enough to be in the body image and eating disorder field of research for about, gosh, 13 years now. That time is flat alone. It’s an area I’ve always been passionate about. Though lucky enough to be leading a research team and also a career as a clinical psychologist, I love being able to combine both the research and clinical work.

00:02:03 Kelly
Look, thank you very, very much for having me. I have lived experience as a male with an eating disorder in my early 40s, late 40s, now fully recovered. And now what I do is try and spend my time as well, advocating for those with either eating disorders, body image issues, but also males and also older people that might come across some challenges in this space as well.

00:02:31 Yvie
So why do you think body image and eating disorders in older adults are often overlooked or misunderstood? And do you have any specific examples of this that you’ve experienced? Gemma, can we start with you?

00:02:44 Gemma
Yeah. Unfortunately, I hear this all the time, both in my research life and life as a clinician, sadly. So I often hear stories that people have been told by health professionals. Surely you’ve grown out of that by now. This is much more a young person’s illness. Why are you still behaving in this manner?

00:03:05 Gemma
So I suppose, really, unfortunately, stigmatizing and diminishing the person’s experience because they are a slightly older person presenting with an eating disorder. It might even be the first time they’re presenting with an eating disorder. It might be long standing. But it always really breaks my heart to hear that kind of response when we know that reaching out for support for an eating disorder at any age is difficult, never mind as someone who’s a little bit more advanced in age and they might not ever go back for support if that’s the response they receive.

00:03:42 Gemma
So I suppose I’m lucky that at least by the time they’ve got to me, they’ve made a commitment to seeking further support. And I always try and really validate that it’s never too late to seek support.

00:03:54 Yvie
And Kelly?

00:03:55 Kelly
Yeah, absolutely. Mental health doesn’t have an age discrimination, right. It doesn’t know what your age is. It doesn’t know what part of, you know, life cycle you’re in and where you’re at in terms of stage of life and your circumstances. All you know at any age is that you’re going through something that’s challenging and something that’s causing you a significant amount of mental health issues.

00:04:20 Kelly
I only know from lived experience, obviously, and speaking to others as well, that it was very, very daunting as somebody that was 40 years of age going, hang on a minute, I have an eating disorder. Like, I knew that there was something wrong. I knew that I had some mental health challenges around body image and challenges with what I was doing in terms of my behavior.

00:04:45 Kelly
But to go, hang on a second. Firstly, I’m male, Secondly, I’m over 40. I thought this was somebody that or a challenge, I suppose more than anything else for somebody that was a lot younger. Why am I now going through this? This isn’t seem real, particularly because I’ve got teenage daughters as well, that I was very mindful around what was going on as well.

00:05:08 Kelly
So. And even trying to get support was. Was quite interesting. I remember my first instance of reaching out to get support and again, it was. I’m not the typical stereotype, which is terrible to say at the outset, but the reality was that, yeah, the information that was presented back to me was very much for somebody that was a lot younger and things like that.

00:05:32 Kelly
So, Jammer, I am completely alone with you. It breaks my heart that to hear anybody of any age going through this for one thing, but secondary somebody of an older age to go, yeah, surely you’ve grown out of this. Surely this isn’t, you know, what you think it is. It absolutely is. Like it’s it doesn’t know what your age is.

00:05:53 Yvie
I often think of people who are older who may be going to ask for help for the very first time. A lot of people who have developed an eating disorder in their younger life, it already has that stigma. So, you know, going to your doctor is hard enough, but if you have never done it and you finally decided, you know, I’m going to get the help I need to be shut down, like that would be extremely debilitating that there’s such a high mortality rate when it comes to eating disorders.

00:06:28 Yvie
And so that would only affect you, the older you get if an eating disorder isn’t addressed, is that correct?

00:06:35 Gemma
Absolutely. So a long standing eating disorder. So people have been experiencing physical complications as well as mental complications for a long time. It does shorten one’s life expectancy. Absolutely. But even more so just quality of life while people are living like just the impacts on themselves, their families, their working life, social lives, everything.

00:07:02 Gemma
And eating disorder impacts all facets of life. And unfortunately too many people lose their lives to eating disorders.

00:07:10 Yvie
So Gemma, in your work, what unique challenges do older adults face compared to younger individuals when seeking help?

00:07:20 Gemma
Yeah, so just even the first conversation, seeking help, not being believed, not getting appropriate testing, not being referred on. But even when they do get referred on, sometimes the services are very youth focused. So people will tell me they feel like a complete fish out of water in these services. They’re like, they don’t know what to do with me.

00:07:43 Gemma
They just focus on the young ones. There’s nothing for me. So okay, then I have to go privately. Well, do I have the money to pay for private care? Eating disorders are incredibly expensive. So it’s just barriers at every step of the way for, for people who are a bit older than the norm.

00:08:05 Yvie
And what do you, as the professional, the expert, what are you doing to kind of help in that, in that realm?

00:08:13 Gemma
So I suppose what my team has been working on specifically in the last couple of years is the experience of midlife eating disorders, particularly the intersection with the, the menopause transmission. That’s not to say that anyone during midlife should absolutely get the eating disorder care they deserve. But there it is believed that there’s a higher risk period around that menopause transition.

00:08:38 Gemma
And it was not really known by many health professionals or researchers. So we were like, hey, someone needs to do something in this space to help all these people. So we set about developing what we believe is a world first online comprehensive course to explain what’s going on to people with a Lived experience, their loved ones and also health professionals with that intersection of eating disorders and menopause.

00:09:05 Gemma
It’s kindly hosted by the Eating Disorders Victoria Learned platform. We’re very grateful to them, but there’s so much expansion to be done here to help people in midlife who are experiencing eating disorders.

00:09:18 Yvie
So that course is for anyone or is it for just professionals?

00:09:23 Gemma
It’s for absolutely anyone. So we set it up for if you’re supporting someone through the menopause transition so you’re a partner, a friend, you can absolutely log on experiencing it yourself as well. We actually co designed it with people with a lived experience, as all of these materials should be. And I can assure you it was actually some of the most fun research I’ve ever had the pleasure of leading.

00:09:49 Gemma
And I am so grateful to all those wonderful people who contributed.

00:09:53 Yvie
I’d like to say personally thank you so much for developing this course.

00:09:57 Gemma
The honor is all mine, really. As I said, it was such a joy to do and we know we’re having an impact, but there’s so much more to be done.

00:10:05 Yvie
It’s only going to get bigger and better, right?

00:10:08 Gemma
We hope so. That’s definitely our plan.

00:10:10 Yvie
You know, we’re talking about menopause and eating disorders, but let’s go back to you, Kelly, because you don’t get menopause, but men do get eating disorders. So can you tell us a bit about your personal experience and your story?

00:10:29 Kelly
Yeah, absolutely. And Gemma, you. You touched on some amazing points there. I’d love to circle back on some stuff, but I’ll share my story. So when I was sort of mid-30s, thereabouts, I got into the gym. I always had a scenario in my own body image issue where I was not necessarily the biggest guy in the world.

00:10:54 Kelly
I was certainly probably the smallest. I was, I’m quite short and I was very skinny as a kid and growing up and things like that. So for me, body image was just rife all through my teenage years, all through my early 20s, I started hitting the gym and I started to develop, which is actually quite nice.

00:11:13 Kelly
For me, it was a flip of the switch. The problem was it then got to a stage where it got to a point where it wasn’t just going to the gym for fun. It was more of a routine. It was very much, I have to do this, my exercise routine, my eating routine was absolutely distorted in that manner.

00:11:36 Kelly
I then went down the path of bodybuilding. So for me, getting a little bit of that gratification of size and muscle and so on, it just Got worse and worse and worse. It compounded even further. I did two bodybuilding competitions and for anyone that started bodybuilding competition, you know how exceptionally unhealthy that process is.

00:11:59 Kelly
It nearly destroyed me. Well, certainly the first time was challenging. The second time absolutely nearly killed me. And that’s when the worst part of my eating disorder kicked in. So I had multiple weeks in, in hospital. My body got to a point where it was eating my liver because I just didn’t have any, any other reserves.

00:12:20 Kelly
I lost all my muscle. So everything that I’d worked hard for, so, so called hard for, I lost and sort of went back. So that just spiraled even further. I separated from my wife at the time. Thankfully we’re back together now. Yeah, I, to that point, nearly died numerous times, spent numerous times in hospital, got zero support.

00:12:43 Kelly
To your point, Gemma, those services are not designed for, you know, somebody of, you know, the early 40s. It just wasn’t there. I lost my job, lost my house. I wasn’t living on the streets obviously, but I was certainly in a very dire strait until I got myself out of this. So unfortunately, the support that I so called received from professionals had no clue around what was going on inside my head.

00:13:11 Kelly
All they were looking at was behavior. Behavior wasn’t driving this. It was the value proposition that I was displaying. Well, the, that I was replaying in my head. And so once I figured all that out and started to get my life back in order, everything started to change. And Gemma, you rightly pointed out, the physical demands, the like, not only is going through the worst part of when I had an eating disorder, that is beyond painful.

00:13:39 Kelly
The pain that it, it takes to come out of that, the physical pain, mental pain is one thing and you have to get through that. The physical changes and demands of my body during that time. I had stress fractures in my feet, I had odemia in both sides, I could barely walk. I had massive digestive issues.

00:14:02 Kelly
I lost hormones, a whole bunch of stuff. That’s my story. I’m fully recovered now. Body’s great, body’s very, very healthy.

00:14:11 Yvie
I was going to ask on that, Kelly, do you have any physical ailments that have, you know, followed you?

00:14:17 Kelly
Yeah, yeah, great, great question. So I, I get my bloods done every six months purely to make sure that kidney function, liver function, prostate, all of those sorts of things. You’re right, I don’t have menopause. But I need to make sure that health wise still. Okay, I do have hormones. I am also on testosterone replacement therapy.

00:14:38 Kelly
So trt, because during that time, I completely had none.

00:14:43 Yvie
So that was what made you lose your testosterone?

00:14:47 Kelly
Yes, absolutely.

00:14:48 Yvie
That is really fascinating and very important information.

00:14:54 Kelly
Absolutely. And it wasn’t until I started in my early phase of recovery realizing, and you’re getting blood tests and whatnot and going, I have no testosterone. Once I got my testosterone function going back into the body through trt, I started to feel very different. I was like, oh, I’m starting to feel alive again.

00:15:15 Kelly
And that once that happened and I got like, hormone balances right, liver function kicked back in, kidney function, perfect. Everything now is perfect. It just goes to show that their hormone rebalance, the effect that that had on my mental health. Dramatic.

00:15:33 Yvie
Gemma, do you have anything that you’d like to add to Kelly’s story?

00:15:37 Gemma
Just a huge thank you to Kelly for advocating and sharing his story. Particularly that sort of intersectionality of being a little bit older and also a male and just health professionals throwing their hands up in the air going, I’ve got no idea what to do here. And I think as health professionals, we need to sit with not knowing sometimes and being uncomfortable and just continuing to be there, continuing to support because that sometimes is all you can do.

00:16:08 Gemma
And I, Kelly, feel free to disagree. But sometimes that, that is all that’s needed sometimes in that moment, obviously we’re working towards cures and things like that, but just abandoning the person, that’s the worst thing you can do.

00:16:21 Kelly
I completely agree with you and I’ll just sort of echo on that as well. Is the behavior that is being displayed as a symptom. It’s not the root cause. Try. And to your point, Gemma, like, really listen to the person and support the person because ultimately we’re just people going through some challenges.

00:16:40 Kelly
So figure out what is behind the scenes that’s actually happening to that person. It was very clear. Like, it’s now very clear to me what was going on. Unfortunately, health professionals, psychologists, psychiatrists, no idea, weren’t interested.

00:16:57 Yvie
That’s kind of their job.

00:16:59 Kelly
I thought so. I thought so.

00:17:02 Gemma
Definitely.

00:17:03 Kelly
Yeah.

00:17:04 Yvie
It blows my mind.

00:17:06 Gemma
We’re sort of, I think sometimes we think we’re meant to have all the answers and be like these super competent people. And of course that’s what you try to be most of the time. But medicine doesn’t have all the answers. And I suppose because I’m quite curious, as a researcher, I’m okay to sit in that uncertainty, but I just encourage all the health professionals listening in and everyone else to, it’s okay to be uncertain.

00:17:30 Gemma
It’s not okay to abandon.

00:17:38 Yvie
We are having a guest coming on later in the show that we couldn’t have lived with us right now. But Jemmy, you do know her and she had her own personal experience with a GP that dismissed her and we will let her tell that story. But do you or have you personally experienced anything like that or have any stories like that?

00:18:03 Gemma
I should say, Evie, it’s an absolute honour to know sue and I know that people really, really enjoy hearing from her. Unfortunately, I hear this far too much, this kind of story about being, I suppose, not heard or their concerns being dismissed by gps. Gps have a very difficult job. I want that to be made clear.

00:18:25 Gemma
They work under very challenging conditions and I think more support, more funding for their education, more understanding, will really help everyone get the care that they need. And I think, as we’ve been chatting about, just listening to people is a huge deal. It’s not always jumping in with a solution straight away, it’s just hearing the person out who’s in front of you.

00:18:50 Yvie
Absolutely. And letting like a practice manager know that something didn’t go quite as you wanted it or needed it to in your consultation. Do you see that as a good thing?

00:19:07 Gemma
I think it can’t hurt. And I think, you know, a good practice manager will be across the flow of patients and anyone who should potentially be followed up, maybe by a nurse, even if the doctor cannot follow them up, sometimes it’s slightly easier to get in with a nurse for follow up appointments.

00:19:27 Gemma
So I think it’s about utilising the team.

00:19:30 Yvie
Well, yeah, great. Very good advice. Kelly, with lived experience, do you have anything to add?

00:19:37 Kelly
Yeah, I wouldn’t say that I had a terrible experience, but during, as I was sort of navigating what was going on with me, there was just a lot of uneducation or miseducation. They just didn’t quite know what I was dealing with or anything like that. But it was, I would say it’s probably worse as I was going through like recovery and they really did not have a clue about how to help and what I was physically going through, mentally going through and just looking at all the different things that were going on inside my body.

00:20:07 Kelly
There was just a lot of misinformation around or uneducated, you know, thoughts that were that I was sort of hearing and seeing as well. So it wasn’t a terrible experience. But I had to navigate for me personally what I was expecting to have at each of the stages for me as, as I was going through recovery.

00:20:26 Yvie
I think that’s a really interesting point. You know, you having to navigate. I often tell my followers when we talk about these kind of things, you have to advocate for yourself. And unfortunately, it’s a reality. And, you know, there’s something, you know, that we may not be comfortable with. There’s a lot of people who simply.

00:20:49 Yvie
They don’t want to rock boats. They don’t want to say anything. They don’t want to be disliked. You know, they’re already having so many problems.

00:20:57 Gemma
I think of that power differential, Evie, between a doctor and a patient. It’s just huge. Like, how. How comfortable do we feel with disagreeing with people like this? It’s incredibly challenging. And I think, yeah, I mean, thank you, Kelly, for. For telling people that they can advocate for themselves or suggesting to bring along someone else who they feel might be able to support them with that.

00:21:21 Gemma
And I think just flipping this conversation, like, working with parents quite a bit recently. My gosh, they are tough cookies, and they’ve had to be to get help for their child. And, you know, people in midlife don’t always have their mum and dad to come along and add.

00:21:38 Kelly
No, we don’t.

00:21:39 Gemma
Exactly. So I understand that it’s really, really hard. And you know what? Maybe it’s your psychologist, maybe it’s your dietitian, maybe it’s your partner, maybe it’s your friend. It can be anyone who can. Can come along and be with you and say, hey, I don’t understand that. That doesn’t sound right to me.

00:21:57 Gemma
That’s not what my person here is asking about.

00:22:00 Kelly
Exactly. And that’s a really good point. Like, you know how you’re feeling. Right? So you have to be the advocate for you. You have to be the voice. But to your point, if. If that’s not the personality type that you are, that’s fine. Have somebody with you that can go now. You know what?

00:22:15 Kelly
We’re not leaving until this thing gets addressed in this way. Because you know what? You. You. You kind of have a fair idea around what you might need, but you just need direction and you need someone to believe.

00:22:28 Yvie
Yeah.

00:22:29 Kelly
That’s the key point.

00:22:30 Yvie
And that’s why it’s so incredibly important to talk to your loved ones, even if it’s just one person that can be in your corner. If you find it difficult to talk to anyone, talking to one person can give you that confidence to talk to the professional. And taking them with you can also be incredibly important.

00:22:49 Yvie
It’s amazing how much we will do for another person that we won’t do for ourselves. So if you maybe if we start looking at ourselves as, you know, that friend that, you know, how would, what would you do if this was happening to your best friend, your child, your parent, your partner? That might be some good advice as well.

00:23:13 Yvie
So I’d just like to dive into societal expectations and ageism. I’d like to hear how unrealistic beauty standards and cultural narratives about aging may have affected you personally or the people that you’ve worked with. Gemma, let’s start with you. How can we challenge these societal ideals on a broader scale?

00:23:35 Gemma
Oh, Evie, I love this question. Like something we’re still working on. Definitely. And I love reflecting on this because I think in different cultures, age is not seen as such a negative thing, is it? Like, I’m just thinking, say in Japan, like, they’re not like, ah, old people suck. In fact, they have like a public holiday just to celebrate older people.

00:24:01 Gemma
I got to live there for a little while in the past and I was like, yay, old people. Thanks for the day off. So I think, I think, you know, Western society, we don’t tend to view aging quite as positively. But I think I will say even in those countries where aging is sort of less stigmatised, no one is sort of saying, I want to look like an 80 year old.

00:24:26 Gemma
Like, in terms of appearance, it’s still very youth focused. And I think it’s really hard to. To shift something that’s a little bit evolutionarily ingrained, that youth health, being able to reproduce, that is a bit ingrained in the old brains. But I think if we have more representation that older people are productive members of society, which they absolutely are, less focused on appearance, even though that is hard to do.

00:24:58 Gemma
But I think just having older people in advertising, having older people in fashion campaigns, having older people in all facets of life that are important because we know when we show that diversity of age, diversity of size, diversity of ethnicity, that it can shift people’s mindsets. It’s not a quick process, but we’ve shown that in our research.

00:25:20 Gemma
So I think, yes, just actually championing people who are more advanced, advanced in age, rather than having a kind of deficit model that I think we really focus on is aging seems to be a lot about loss, particularly in Western society. So I don’t think that answered your question, Evie. I do really apologise there, but it’s a tough thing to change in a short time.

00:25:45 Yvie
It certainly is. And I think that in a broad sense, which is what I did ask. So you did answer quite well. In a broad sense, you know, like Kelly said it’s, it’s not the behaviors, you know, the root. And that in a broad sense is what it’s all about us, you know, not looking at aging as a positive.

00:26:05 Yvie
Because what comes with aging, the most important thing is wisdom and experience. And when you honor that kind of thing, which a lot of cultures do, and for some reason we don’t. Kelly, for men listening today who might feel ashamed or isolated, what would you say to encourage them to make that first step?

00:26:31 Kelly
Okay, so it’s, it’s really important. Reach out, have a voice. And if you’re getting discouraged or you’re getting pushback from, from a GP or whoever you’re reaching out to, from a support perspective, make sure that you continue to be your biggest voice and your biggest advocate. And if you can’t be, grab a loved one and go, please be my voice with me.

00:26:54 Kelly
I’m struggling. Right? It’s okay to, to admit that you’re struggling, but it’s even better to go and get support. So please be vocal. Please continue to do so. And if, if all we do is save one person. Right? That’s, that’s great.

00:27:11 Yvie
Yeah. One person saving one person. Not bad.

00:27:14 Kelly
A hundred percent. 100%. The mortality rate in eating disorders in anything is way too high. So please reach out, please don’t feel ashamed and yeah, go get support.

00:27:28 Yvie
Well said. And Gemma, I’m going to finish with you because we’ve already touched on your cause, but I think talking solutions, solutions.

00:27:38 Gemma
So unfortunately, we still don’t know a lot about eating disorders and I absolutely love researching them. And I think what I would do is a bit of a call to action for people to contribute to research however they can, whether it’s doing a survey, being part of a focus group, kicking a few bucks our way.

00:27:58 Gemma
Of course, research is going to say that the only way we can, can give better care is to know what’s causing it and design better treatments. And then health professionals will be, I’ll give you this, this will make you feel better. And then we can finally cure eating disorders. That would be my dream.

00:28:15 Kelly
Can I just add one thing there? Sorry. Because Jeremy, you rightly pointed out like the lived experience and reaching out and things like that. The other thing that I just sort of preface there as well is the necessarily focus on the behavior. Right. The thing that they’re doing. Think about why you’re doing it.

00:28:35 Kelly
Look inside, do a bit of self reflection and even with a loved one as well. And think about. For me personally, I can only talk about myself, right. I’M not sure about everybody else, but for me it was about how I valued myself. Just reach inside it and figure out why. What is driving this as well.

00:28:53 Kelly
So thank and thank you, Gemma, for everything that you guys do. It’s amazing.

00:28:57 Gemma
Not at all, Kelly. And a shout out to all of our lived experience people who help already help us with research every single day. You are what is pushing forward innovations in this field. So thank you and please keep it up. Obviously we hope you’re having a good time with us researchers and clinicians.

00:29:17 Gemma
But yeah, the lived experience, experience input means everything.

00:29:20 Yvie
Thank you so much, Gemma. And this is a great shout out and call out for people who, you know, want to help in, in that way. It’s anonymous.

00:29:29 Gemma
Absolutely. Oh gosh. Anonymous Confidential. Come under a different name if you like. Never have to turn your screen on if you don’t want to. Yeah, it’s, it’s more what you have to say about your experience experience than who you are. Of course, I mean we find wonderful people like Kelly who are willing to lend their name and that’s amazing as well.

00:29:54 Gemma
But you certainly, if you don’t feel comfortable doing that, that’s completely fine. Our job is to make you feel comfortable sharing your story.

00:30:02 Yvie
Great. Well, I think we can leave it at that. Thank you so much for coming on the let’s Talk podcast. Thank you so much for joining me. Just want to say thank you. Thank you both so much.

00:30:13 Kelly
Well, thank you for allowing us to have a voice. It’s, it’s beyond appreciated.

00:30:17 Gemma
Absolutely. Evie. I, I was thrilled to see this invitation come.

00:30:27 Yvie
Next, we’re joined by 55 year old Sue Cody, who opens up about how life changes, including motherhood and menopause, contributed to the onset of her eating disorder later in life. I began our conversation by asking sue to share a bit about her journey.

00:30:44 Sue
So my eating disorder journey began back in my early 20s when I first found love. I thought maybe if I lost a little bit of weight, you might like me a bit more. And then it just kind of spiraled from there and I was stuck in with bulimia till my 30s. Like I got pregnant at 30 and that was kind of a little bit of a wake up call to me and it sort of faded into the background a bit during motherhood.

00:31:16 Sue
But like when things were a bit stressful during that time, it would rear its ugly head, but I was able to deal with it. And then in my early 50s, apparently I was entered this so called perimenopause, which I’d never heard of before. There was massive changes in my body. And also my daughter left home to go to uni and she was like my best friend.

00:31:41 Sue
I know we’re not supposed to be best friends with our children, but my husband worked at night, so it was just me and her at nighttime. So, yeah, we did everything together. And then she was, like, gone. And I really, really struggled with that. And I think maybe Covid had a little bit to do with as well.

00:31:57 Sue
I’ve always had anxiety and depression, but it seemed to get stronger at this time. And I attempted suicide. And then upon leaving hospital, it was like something clicked. Anorexia just became a part of me. And I think looking back, maybe that was my coping mechanism for dealing with everything. Like, if I could focus on my eating rather than everything else going on, it would just be easier.

00:32:23 Sue
And then I went down that path for the next four years. I think at the moment, you could say that I’m in quasi recovery. Like, I’m getting there, but not quite there yet.

00:32:33 Yvie
Okay, so you’re getting. You’re getting professional help now?

00:32:37 Gemma
Yeah.

00:32:38 Yvie
Tell me about your GP experience.

00:32:41 Sue
I’m due to have. I think it’s a gastroctomy or something where they explode down into your stomach, because I have an ulcer because of the eating disorder. And I went to make the appointment and he asked about my health, and I said, oh, I’m in recovery from anorexia. And he just looked at me and he goes, oh, I thought that was only a young girl’s disease.

00:33:03 Sue
And I just, like, rolled my eyes and said, no, anyone can get it. And then he said, how are you going? And I said, yeah, I’m getting there. And he goes, well, you look healthy, so you don’t look like you’ve got it anymore. And then I also had to say, you can be of a normal weight and still have an eating disorder.

00:33:18 Sue
That typical stereotype. Look, it doesn’t really exist.

00:33:23 Yvie
So you were educating him and then what happened?

00:33:26 Sue
Well, I went home and stewed on it and then wrote a complaint to the hospital and I got feedback just the last couple of days, and they’re going to re educate him and all the other members in that clinic there as well. Even if I only educate. Help educate three people, that’s three more people that know better than what they did beforehand.

00:33:47 Yvie
Tell me about how you came to know Gemma. Professor Gemma Sharp.

00:33:54 Sue
So I think it was on Instagram, there was an advertisement for they were after people to do some research into the link between menopause and eating disorders. And I thought Well, I ticked that box. So I applied to do the research and there was a. Three or four workshops that we had to do with her and, and some interviews.

00:34:13 Sue
So I helped with that from day doc, and that information has all been released. I think it’s accessible through adv, maybe. Yeah, it is, yeah.

00:34:22 Yvie
As far as eating disorders and body image and ageism, what would you like to say to, you know, anyone who’s listening who may feel like it’s happening to them for the first time, for the second time, and they’re worried that, number one, there’s no one to talk to, and number two, if there is, they’re going to be not listened to because of the stigma around eating disorders.

00:34:47 Yvie
Number, you know, to start with, let alone, you know, having it at an older age and being told that it’s a young person’s thing.

00:34:56 Sue
Well, I’m quite sure that they would be feeling like I did that at my age. I shouldn’t be doing something so stupid and vain and like, I should have my life sorted out and be focused on the important things in life. But it can happen to anyone at any age. And it’s no different to if you’re 10, 20, 60, or even 80.

00:35:20 Sue
Like, it’s still a real thing and you’d be very surprised, like, if you do start asking for help and doing some research, how many other older, more mature people there are out there that are suffering and you’re not alone.

00:35:35 Yvie
Something we spoke about with Kelly and Gemma earlier was advocating for yourself how we would do it for our child or our children. As a parent, you go into a doctor’s office and you fight for them, but often we don’t do that for ourselves. And I think that it’s something that is really important to see yourself as a loved one and say, if I to yourself, if I was doing this for my child, for my partner, for my parent, for my friend, even, I have to be able to do this for myself.

00:36:09 Sue
Yeah, that’s the message that I get from the professionals that I sought to get help from, that I, I am just as important as anyone else and I need to get the help for myself because I’m just as important as anyone else.

00:36:23 Yvie
Yeah, you are. And did you find that the menopause and the perimenopause coming into it? The, the, the changes that was, that you were going through, do you think that that was a catalyst or you think that, you know, because there was a few things happening for you. What was the menopausal changes that really, you know, made you start to, I guess, awaken that eating disorder again.

00:36:50 Sue
I think the big thing was the weight gain. Yeah. It just totally freaked me out and I couldn’t deal with it until I spiraled into anorexia.

00:37:00 Yvie
Yeah. Wow. I mean, and that’s really pushing the envelope, isn’t it, to make it happen, which is just, you know, can be so dangerous on your body, as you know. Thank you so much, Sue.

00:37:12 Sue
Thank you. Can I just say how important it is to have peer mentoring program? It was just so valuable to be able to speak to someone who been there, done that, and come out the other side. It just gives you so much hope. And if we can get programs like that everywhere and have people involved of all different ages, I feel like more older people would be willing to enter these programs if they know that they can be linked with someone more their age rather than being with someone who’s younger.

00:37:39 Yvie
Yeah, that’s great. That’s really great advice. Thank you so much, sue, for your time.

00:37:45 Sue
Thank you for having me.

00:37:48 Yvie
Thank you to Gemma, Kelly and Sue for your openness, insights and wisdom. If you’re concerned about an eating disorder for yourself or someone you care about, please reach out to the Butterfly national helpline at 1-800-334-673. That’s 1-800-ed-Hope for a free confidential conversation with one of our specialist counsellors. Alternatively, you can chat online by visiting butterfly.org au and following the prompts at the top of the page.

00:38:23 Yvie
And please don’t be afraid to speak up. Your voice matters and advocating for yourself is so important. If you’re feeling unsure about where to start, you can download Butterfly Support Script and take it with you to your gp. It’s helpful to ensure your visit is personalized with your needs and requirements. And I’ll also add that you shouldn’t feel like you have to do it all on your own.

00:38:46 Yvie
Bring someone with you to those doctor’s appointments. Whether it’s an advocate, a friend or anyone you trust, sometimes having that extra support can make all the difference. Oh, and one last thing. If you can think about contributing to research, it’s such a powerful way to help create better understanding and care for everyone in the future.

00:39:10 Yvie
To find out more about today’s episode, including links to support scripts, recovery support groups and peer mentoring, check out the show notes or head to butterfly.org.au forward/podcast and click through to this episode. Let’s Talk is produced for the Butterfly foundation by Evie Jones and Annette Stalliano from Classic Me Productions with the support of the Waratah Education Foundation.

00:39:36 Yvie
Our executive producer is Camilla Becket, with support from Melissa Wilton and Kate Mulray.