Your relationship with food, your body, and your weight can have a meaningful impact on your mental health—and your mental health can, in turn, affect the way you experience your body and your relationship with food.
Your relationship with your body matters in psychiatric care
Coherent Care Women’s & Maternal Wellness provides individualized psychiatric care for women experiencing eating disorders, disordered eating, body image distress, and complicated relationships with food or weight. A formal diagnosis is not required to seek support.
Sometimes the signs are less obvious: anxiety around food, frequent thoughts about weight or appearance, changes in eating patterns, fear of weight gain, guilt after eating, or feeling disconnected from your body. Medication can be an important part of mental health treatment, but the potential effects of medication on weight, appetite, metabolism, and body image deserve thoughtful consideration.
Concerns about weight gain are sometimes minimized or overlooked in psychiatric care. For someone with a history of an eating disorder, disordered eating, body image distress, or significant anxiety around weight, these considerations can be especially important. When discussing medication, comprehensive psychiatric care considers more than a medication's primary benefits. The whole person—including their relationship with food and their body—matters.
Treatment conversations may include:
How a medication may affect appetite or weight
Individual history and relationship with food and body image
Previous experiences with psychiatric medications
Mental health symptoms and treatment goals
Whether potential side effects could create additional distress
Alternative medications or treatment approaches that may be appropriate
This does not mean that medication associated with weight change is never appropriate. Rather, medication decisions should be individualized, transparent, and informed by each person's history, needs, and priorities.
Eating concerns can be accompanied by shame, secrecy, or the feeling that an experience is “not serious enough” to deserve help.
There is no need to prove that a relationship with food or the body is severe enough to seek care. A compassionate psychiatric approach creates space to talk openly about food, weight, body image, medications, and mental health without judgment or assumptions.Psychiatric care may be provided as part of a broader treatment plan and, when appropriate, coordinated with therapists, dietitians, primary care providers, or other members of the care team.