Navigating eating disorders in church by Hope Virgo

Navigating eating disorders in church environments by Hope Virgo, author and mental health campaigner

‘You have to love yourself because God made you in his image.’

The words bellowed through the hot tent as I watched on. It was easy for her to stand up there and say this. She looked amazing. As the ministry time began, I made a speedy exit. I just wanted to be on my own. For the last four years I had been hating my body, hating my appearance, and constantly trying to change myself, perhaps God hated me for this. Was I sinning every time I had these ghastly thoughts about myself?

What I didn’t realise that evening as I sat on the campsite trying to engage in the general chat, whilst my brain frantically added up the calories, was that within the next year I would be standing in the doorway to a mental health hospital where I would spend the next year of my life in recovery from anorexia. During my stay in hospital I grew so far from God, that after a year of anger, frustration and no instant healing I vowed never to go back in to that environment. Honestly, through a lot of my childhood I had felt judged in church, I had felt God only loved me if I did certain things. And every time I felt my brain go down the narrative of calorie counting, I felt so guilty, because I was afraid this meant I was sinning.

Fast forward to 2019, and after 11 years I found myself returning to a church. Sitting at the back taking it all in. Following this Sunday service, I ended up going back week after week and eventually did an Alpha Course. Having a safe space to off-load, to talk, to get angry and share all my emotions around faith was so important for me. When I re-committed to becoming a Christian I wasn’t immediately healed, and I still had to ensure that I kept my eyes fixed on Jesus and had accountability around me. I surrounded myself with the right people for these conversations, and also learnt to flood myself with scripture. There is so much power in affirmations, in the Bible, and in what we feed our brains with – so learning what that looks like for me from a faith perspective has been key.

Through the work that I do now, it is clear that there is still so much stigma when it comes to eating disorders, and this stigma is just as rife in the church as it is in secular environments. Add to this, the amount of events that happen around food in church environments, and the messaging around fasting, and it certainly adds a complicated dynamic in some respects. What we need to ensure in moving forward is leadership from the front, authenticity, and honesty. We need to educate the whole of the church that eating disorders can be hidden in plain sight.

Hope Virgo
Hope has spoken about mental health and eating disorders on Sky News, Newsnight, BBC Breakfast, Good Morning Britain, BBC News, Times Radio and BBC Bristol, and has contributed to The Guardian, Sunday Times, Express and Grazia. In 2019, she led the #DumpTheScales campaign, and has been speaking out about the new legislation to include calories on restaurant menus. Hope is the author of Stand Tall, Little Girl: Facing up to anorexia (Trigger Publishing, 2019) and You Are Free (Even If You Don’t Feel Like It): Mental health, faith and finding your way (SPCK, 2022).

#MentalHealthAwarenessWeek
Statistically 1 in 4 people have a diagnosable mental illness. It is estimated that 10 million people (8.5 million adults and 1.5 million children and young people) will need mental health support as a result of the pandemic. Before the pandemic, in 2019, a report found that 31% of teenagers were ashamed of their body image and that 1 in 8 adults experienced suicidal feelings linked to their body image. Hope is passionate about using her voice and her experiences to change this and to give hope to people caught in the grip of mental illness and/or eating disorders.