Nutritional Trauma

First of all, what is Nutritional Trauma… or maybe better yet, what is trauma?

Trauma is any array of experiences that are “emotionally painful and distressing” that overwhelm an individuals ability to cope day to day leaving them feeling powerless.

So then what is nutritional trauma?

Since I address nutrition as 3 pillars including physical, mental and spiritual we will look at it in this way.

Physical trauma:

Breanna is an 18 yo female who is experiencing frequent brain fog, bloating, nausea and stomach pain. She begins to notice she feels malnourished and sick.

She tells her doctor and her doctor proceeds to tell her that it is all in her head. With months of fighting for herself she finally receives the diagnosis that she is type 1 diabetic and has celiac disease.

Mental trauma:

She starts to develop an unhealthy relationship with food as she notices everything makes her sick, she becomes scared to eat and manage her blood sugar.

She doesn’t know where to turn for help and develops a fear of food. This causes extreme weight loss and her body image changes, she starts to isolate herself.

Spiritual trauma:

When her friends invite her to go out she is nervous food will be present and she is uncomfortable with how much weight she has lost.

She fears her friends will judge her weight loss and assume her not eating is extreme dieting. She declines the invitation and as a result stays home to avoid potential judgement. Her social interactions decline and she starts to experience feelings of loneliness.

Cyclical relationship

You can see from this example that there is a cyclical relationship between these pillars. If one pillar is unbalanced then all 3 will be out of balance. They all play an integral role together. We need to balance each pillar to maintain a balanced life and reach optimal health.

This is where Transformational Nutrition Coaching comes into play to transform each pillar for balance.

Have you experienced nutritional trauma?