An interview with eating disorder counselor Shelley Jensen
Q: What compelled you to become a disordered eating counselor?
By the time I was 8 years old I was over 100 pounds; by 13, I was 186 pounds; by 15, I was 230 and by 21, I weighed over 270 pounds. During those years I tried desperately to lose weight, playing many games with myself.
If I promised not to eat for a week than I could have all the ice cream I wanted. If I could just learn to purge it, then it wouldn’t count, and so the cycle continued. In my own 17-year journey I lost 135 pounds of pain, insecurities, fear, obsession, panic and self-loathing and finally reclaimed my lost self.
For many years after, I worked in the weight loss industry. I watched it add fuel to the fire of eating disorders and I dreamed of a time when I could finally help share my knowledge in a personal and caring way.
12 years ago, “S” Team Counselling was born. I made a vow at that time that if I could find a way out of this pain, that I would dedicate my life’s work to helping women see there is indeed a road to recovery. I have never done anything so rewarding, so difficult and so passionate in my life.
Q: How can we change things for generations to come?
Well, in a perfect world, we would all be so in touch with our emotions that we would be less tempted by addictions. But for now we need to educate youth on positive body image, along with acceptance of our emotions at an early age and have resources available on the very early signs of disordered eating.
I believe parents need to check in with their own messages around their bodies and realize they are setting an example: their children are watching. I would love to see more diverse media messages, women and girls expressing their emotions in healthy ways and more media coverage on coping with stresses of life.
Q: What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned from your experiences so far?
Frankly, I would say that we continue to be misunderstood. There seems to be a lot of guesswork around disordered eating and the roots of it. We want to love and be loved and accepted for who we are. Often it has little to do with wanting to lose weight; it’s about our space in the world.
It’s very symbolic: Where do I fit in? Who am I? Is it OK to be me? Am I enough? I have a real resistance to the idea that this is about beauty and thinness; it’s more about self-love. We need to dispel the myths that are out there and find out what a healthy relationship with food and out bodies are.
Shelley Jensen is a disordered eating counselor in Port Coquitlam, B.C., Canada.
Tel: (604) 552-4363
Email: shelleysteam@shaw.ca
