H eadlines
Passover, Pandemic Create Eating Disorder Challenges
L OCA L
SOPHIE PANZER | JE STAFF
AS THE JEWISH community
approaches another pandemic-
era Passover, staff at the Renfrew
Center, a national network of
eating disorder treatment facil-
ities, are working to support
Jewish women and girls whose
experiences with eating disor-
ders become more challenging
during the holiday.

“Doing a lot of inspec-
tion of food and cleaning
around the home can bring
up a lot of the rigidity that we
sometimes see with anorexic
patients and, of course, some
of the large amounts of food
that can be prepared and
potentially consumed can
be really triggering for those
with a bulimia or binge-
eating diagnosis,” said Jillian
Hartman, licensed mental
health counselor and site
director at the Renfrew Center
of New York.

She said eating disorders are a
form of emotional dysregulation
— patients are unable to manage
their emotional responses in
healthy ways. The strong feelings
of excitement and anxiety, not
to mention the emphasis on
physical appearance, that large
family gatherings generate, can
be difficult to process.

Sarah Bateman, licensed
clinical social worker and
Renfrew Center Jewish commu-
nity liaison, said the sadness
of being unable to gather with
family or the frustration of
spending too much time with
people in their immediate
households due to the pandemic
adds to patients’ stress this year.

She said Renfrew Center
staff teach patients how to
slow down and process these
emotions. However, women
who are expected to care for
children, cook, clean and
attend to guests may have diffi-
culty making time to care for
themselves and their treatment
needs during the holiday.

Patients are also given a meal
plan to help them get used to
eating a healthy amount of food in
regular intervals throughout the
day, and dietary laws can create
issues in that part of the process.

The prohibition of chametz on
Passover disrupts eating routines
and means that the pasta, bread
and other carbohydrates patients
are usually encouraged to eat are
literally off the table. Eating large
quantities of matzah can cause
digestive problems that inter-
fere with patients’ ability to feel
hungry or full.

“For somebody with an
eating disorder, this isn’t
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Jillian Hartman
just physical. It becomes
emotional, and mentally it
becomes challenging to be able
to continue feeding oneself
properly,” Bateman said.

Bateman said she never
blames Jewish rituals or tradi-
tions for causing or worsening
eating disorders. But she believes
it’s important for therapists to
understand how they shape
people’s relationship with food
in order to provide culturally
sensitive and sustainable treat-
ment — having kosher food
available at treatment centers
and understanding holiday
rules, for example.

“We want to make sure that
they’re able to stick to the rules
as much as possible while also
participating in treatment,”
she said. “And for somebody in
outpatient treatment, we want to
make sure that their individual-
ized treatment plan works with
their lifestyle and their needs.”
If Passover restrictions
threaten to disrupt treatment,
the Renfrew Center will work
with patients’ rabbis to create
more flexibility. For observant
Ashkenazi patients, rabbis
often give permission to eat
rice, beans and other forms of
kitniyot that would otherwise
be forbidden.

“A lot of times with an
eating disorder, or with mental
illness in general, we see a lot
of black-and-white thinking
where everything is kind of
all or nothing,” Bateman said.

“What we do in a general-
ized way would be to try and
Sarah Bateman
Courtesy of the Renfrew Center
increase that flexibility and
consider other options.”
Some restrictions of the
pandemic have actually led
to more flexibility, especially
regarding using technology to
connect with loved ones on
holidays. Many of her patients’
rabbis have made statements
permitting those who struggle
with their mental health to
use phones and computers
to connect with support on
Passover, even offering to leave
their own phones on so they
are accessible to congregants.

She said the toll of isola-
tion and loneliness on eating
disorder patients can’t be
underestimated, and she was
pleased that communities have
responded with urgency.

“This was just a really
profound acknowledgment of
the need for connection at this
time of isolation,” she said.

Hartman said patients’
experiences of being treated
for eating disorders has paral-
lels with the Passover story of
escaping slavery.

“It can feel like you’re under
this kind of dictatorship,” she
said. “And then there is an
ability to seek treatment, to
get support and engage in
recovery, and recovery will
look different for everyone and
it’s a very personal journey,
but it can also be a journey in
which they look to gain their
freedom back.” l
spanzer@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0729
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM