Eating Disorders, What We Knew Before and What We Know Now, with Alexandra Paul
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06/28/21 • 60 min
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Alexandra Paul wasn’t allowed sugar as a kid but she snuck it anyway, not for the taste but for the comfort it provided. As a teen, Alexandra’s modeling and acting careers were going great. Her relationship with food, on the other hand, had become a real mess. At boarding school, it seemed right and normal to deny herself food in order to be as skinny as possible. The other girls were doing it and no one ever talked about it as a disorder. Over time, as she moved into modeling in New York City and acting in Hollywood, the anorexia turned to bulimia and she got hooked on the ritual of bingeing and purging. She’s stayed away from that behavior for the last 30 years but still feels like she could slip back if she’s not careful.
Dr. Jillian Lampert, who also dealt with eating disorders herself as a young person, is the Chief Strategy Officer for the Emily Project, an organization that treats and studies eating disorders. She says there’s a lot of recent research indicating that genetics are much more responsible for who will develop eating disorders of all kinds than we previously thought.
Alexandra Paul personal site
Alexandra Paul IMDb page
Alexandra Paul Wikipedia
Alexandra Paul on Twitter - @alexandra_paul
The Emily Program - https://www.emilyprogram.com/
Dr. Jillian Lampert - https://www.emilyprogram.com/about-us/leadership-team/jillian-lampert/
Reward sensitivity article: https://jeatdisord.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40337-017-0138-2
Sensation and emotion study in progress: http://eatingdisorders.ucsd.edu/research/our-research.html
Sensation study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3955712/
Another sensation study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7230430/
Bodily sensations study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29483865/
Sensation study looking particularly at disgust: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6759364/
Broader study on interoceptive awareness (awareness of body cues): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7927286/
Genetics and neurobiology: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21243469/
Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.
Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at [email protected].
Help is available right away.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK
Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.
International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines
The Depresh Mode newsletter is available twice a week. Subscribe for free and stay up to date on the show and mental health issues. https://johnmoe.substack.com/
John's acclaimed memoir, The Hilarious World of Depression, is available here. https://read.macmillan.com/lp/the-hilarious-world-of-depression/
Find the show on Twitter @depreshpod and Instagram @depreshpod.
John is on Twitter @johnmoe.
Alexandra Paul wasn’t allowed sugar as a kid but she snuck it anyway, not for the taste but for the comfort it provided. As a teen, Alexandra’s modeling and acting careers were going great. Her relationship with food, on the other hand, had become a real mess. At boarding school, it seemed right and normal to deny herself food in order to be as skinny as possible. The other girls were doing it and no one ever talked about it as a disorder. Over time, as she moved into modeling in New York City and acting in Hollywood, the anorexia turned to bulimia and she got hooked on the ritual of bingeing and purging. She’s stayed away from that behavior for the last 30 years but still feels like she could slip back if she’s not careful.
Dr. Jillian Lampert, who also dealt with eating disorders herself as a young person, is the Chief Strategy Officer for the Emily Project, an organization that treats and studies eating disorders. She says there’s a lot of recent research indicating that genetics are much more responsible for who will develop eating disorders of all kinds than we previously thought.
Alexandra Paul personal site
Alexandra Paul IMDb page
Alexandra Paul Wikipedia
Alexandra Paul on Twitter - @alexandra_paul
The Emily Program - https://www.emilyprogram.com/
Dr. Jillian Lampert - https://www.emilyprogram.com/about-us/leadership-team/jillian-lampert/
Reward sensitivity article: https://jeatdisord.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40337-017-0138-2
Sensation and emotion study in progress: http://eatingdisorders.ucsd.edu/research/our-research.html
Sensation study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3955712/
Another sensation study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7230430/
Bodily sensations study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29483865/
Sensation study looking particularly at disgust: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6759364/
Broader study on interoceptive awareness (awareness of body cues): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7927286/
Genetics and neurobiology: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21243469/
Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.
Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at [email protected].
Help is available right away.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK
Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.
International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines
The Depresh Mode newsletter is available twice a week. Subscribe for free and stay up to date on the show and mental health issues. https://johnmoe.substack.com/
John's acclaimed memoir, The Hilarious World of Depression, is available here. https://read.macmillan.com/lp/the-hilarious-world-of-depression/
Find the show on Twitter @depreshpod and Instagram @depreshpod.
John is on Twitter @johnmoe.
Previous Episode
Grief Feels Like You’re Losing Your Mind. But ARE You?
When a loved one dies, the world can become chaos. Everything has changed. The way you drive a car, the way food tastes, the way you even talk to people can feel different and wrong and weird. It feels like you are - for lack of a better term - going crazy. How far apart are grief and mental illness? The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual), the standard reference for mental illness, says that if you’re still messed up from grief six months after the death of your person, you have something called Prolonged Grief Disorder.
For Megan Devine, an author and psychotherapist who specializes in grief, the sudden loss of her partner Matt meant being at the grocery store and temporarily forgetting how money worked. But she says that’s not a problem. That’s a truthful response to a horrifying event. That’s just being horrified.
Megan rejects the idea that being upset for as long as you need to be is a problem. She advocates recognizing the personal truth and reality of what’s going on inside yourself.
Megan’s website Refuge in Grief - https://refugeingrief.com/
Our previous episode with Stephanie Wittels Wachs, which gets referenced a lot - https://maximumfun.org/episodes/depresh-mode/stephanie-wittels-wachs-and-the-pain-and-frustration-of-watching-addiction-happen/
Get your copy of Megan's books, How to Carry What Can't be Fixed: A Journal for Grief and It's OK That You're Not OK here or wherever books are sold. Follow Megan on Twitter @refugeingrief and on Instagram @refugeingrief.
Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.
Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at [email protected].
Help is available right away.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK
Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.
International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines
The Depresh Mode newsletter is available twice a week. Subscribe for free and stay up to date on the show and mental health issues. https://johnmoe.substack.com/
John's acclaimed memoir, The Hilarious World of Depression, is available here. https://read.macmillan.com/lp/the-hilarious-world-of-depression/
Find the show on Twitter @depreshpod and Instagram @depreshpod.
John is on Twitter @johnmoe.
Next Episode
Joel Kim Booster Is In A Pit
1 RecommendationsIt’s tempting to try to look for a reason why Joel Kim Booster, ordinarily a very funny and engaging person, feels dead inside, trapped in a persistent depressive state. His father recently died of COVID. The two hadn’t been very close (Joel’s dad was a conservative Christian, Joel is a gay Hollywood star) but were beginning to reconnect. You could point to the pandemic, which left Joel in an apartment he doesn’t like for extended periods.
But it’s just as easy to point to things that aren’t especially depressing about Joel’s situation. He’s got movie and TV deals, he’s taping an hour-long Netflix special, he has recently fallen in love, and he’s doing well enough that he’s about to buy a house.
The truth is that any of those factors might influence Joel’s mood and behavior but depression isn’t simple enough to be routinely caused or prevented by one’s fortune in the rest of life.
Depresh Mode host John Moe says this interview is the strongest representation of what depression is like that he’s done in all his years of interviewing people on the subject.
Visit Joel Kim Booster's website here. For tour dates, visit his Linktree. Follow Joel Kim Booster on Twitter @ihatejoelkim and on Instagram @ihatejoelkim. Watch his Comedy Central Stand-Up Presents special here.
Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.
Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at [email protected].
Help is available right away.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK
Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.
International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines
The Depresh Mode newsletter is available twice a week. Subscribe for free and stay up to date on the show and mental health issues. https://johnmoe.substack.com/
John's acclaimed memoir, The Hilarious World of Depression, is available here. https://read.macmillan.com/lp/the-hilarious-world-of-depression/
Find the show on Twitter @depreshpod and Instagram @depreshpod.
John is on Twitter @johnmoe.
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