The Weekly Show: 3/28/25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to the weekly show here on iHeartRadio
on ninety three nine Light FM, one of three five
Kiss FM, and Rock ninety five to five. I'm Paulina,
and every week we're here to discuss a variety of
topics that matter to Chicagoland. And today on the show,
we will be chatting with Joanna Kandell from the National
Alliance for Eating Disorders discussing eating disorders that affect more

(00:21):
than thirty million Americans. And we also have Jane Randall,
co founder of No More and No More dot org,
joining us to discuss domestic violence and sexual assaults, which
suddenly affects one in three women globally. Let's kick off
the show.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Every fifty two minutes, someone dies due to an eating
disorder in our country. It's one of the deadliest. She
had most overlooked mental health challenges affecting over thirty million
American Let's get a little bit of clarity on why
this is happening and how we could help someone that
might be going through this. Joanna Kandell is from the

(00:55):
National Alliance of Eating Disorders. She is the CEO of
the organization. Joanna, thank you very much for your time.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Thank you so much for having me today.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
So let's talk about Let's start off with the prevalent.
How prevalent are eating disorders in the United States in
this day and age.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah, I think people are often surprised how many people
exactly struggle with an eating disorder. So it is estimated
that over twenty nine million Americans, that is one in
nine Americans will have an eating disorder in their lifetime.
And what people, I don't think realize is that these
are not disorders of choice, They're not disorders of vanity.

(01:34):
These are serious mental illness that are biologically based and
genetic in nature. It's not something that people, you know,
wake up one morning, look out the window and decide
I'm going to have an eating disorder. These are serious
mental health disorders.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
What constitutes an eating disorder?

Speaker 3 (01:54):
Yeah, absolutely so. Eating disorders are disturbances in eating and
feeding patterns. So, for example, when individuals are not able
to nourish themselves in a way that can sustain livelihood,
it goes from disordered eating to eating disorders when it
becomes unmanageable, when it's ruling your life, when it's the

(02:17):
first thing that you're thinking about in the morning, the
last thing that you're thinking about at night, and every
other thought in between, and your life takes a serious
toll on being able to show up, and you know,
do life.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
I guess the things we most commonly think of, and
I guess I'm showing my age. I'm thinking of Karen
Carpenter when I think of eating disorders. Is that what
they are? A bolima and orexia, things of that sort.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Yeah, So there are various eating disorders like you talk about.
You know Karen Carpenter who struggled with anorexia and nervosa,
which anorexia is a self induced starvation resulting from a
distorted body image and intense fear of being big. Then
there's a blimia nervosa, which is when individuals binge and
purge and then binge eating disorder when individuals compulsively overeat,

(03:06):
They none, they stuff, they escape, They it's eating disorders
are maladaptive coping mechanisms. We also have another eating disorder
that many people don't know about. It's called avoidant and
restrictive food intake disorder, which happens to a lot of
children and young adults. It's when there is a fear
around the actual act of eating. So perhaps they had

(03:29):
a trauma where they choked on food, or they don't
like a specific color or texture, And oftentimes you will
see our fed in individuals that are on the autism spectrum.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
What are the misconceptions that you run across that people
have about these types of things, because it feels like
we've kind of come to a level because in part
of social media, where these things have really gotten out
of control in our society, we're seeing it more than ever.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Yeah. Absolutely, and I'm so glad that you asked me.
And I think probably the first biggest misconception is who
develops eating disorders and what they look like. I think
there's this archaic stereotype that it is, you know, often female,
identifying young, very thin bodied, white, upper to middle class,
when we actually know that eating disorders do not discriminate

(04:24):
between age, gender, race, class, body shape and size, sexual
orientation ability. Everyone can develop an eating disorder, and unfortunately,
those stereotypes are huge barriers in individuals accessing or even
getting intervention at all. For example, up to forty percent
of individuals that struggle with eating disorders are male. But

(04:47):
yet we still have this old notion that it's only
females that are going to struggle. So oftentimes people are
struggling in silence, and unfortunately it goes to the point
where they're losing their life because a lot of people
don't know. Is that eating disorders have the second highest
death rate among all psychiatric disorders. It's only second to

(05:08):
opioid addiction. And in this country, someone loses their life
every fifty two minutes to this insidious disease.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Well, that's that's shocking. Forty are male? What what are
some of the early warning signs that a parent, a
loved one, a friend would look out for.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
I think first and foremost noticing a change in mood,
like if someone was very extroverted, they become very introverted. Obviously,
there's some idiosyncrasies around food, perhaps like they're eating less,
maybe they're more focused on the type that that they're eating.
They might have excuses as to why they aren't eating,
you know, saying oh, I had a big lunch, or

(05:49):
my stomach hurts, an uptick in movement if they have
the ability to undo this, if they're doing a lot
of movement in order to you know, burn calories. You know,
in cases of people that are purging like if they're
using you know, the restroom after they're eating. And then
physically like if you notice some fluctuations in weight, if

(06:10):
you notice some fluctuation in like almost that light in
their eye. There could be a myriad of changes when
it comes to both physical.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
And mental depression usually associated with these eating disorders or
not necessarily.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
Absolutely, so you hit the really the nail on the
head there, because we know that eating disorders don't just
live by themselves, so you always see anxiety, depression, trauma.
You know, for some people, substance use about fifty percent
of individuals that have eating disorders will also have a

(06:46):
substance use disorder. But we'll see high high high rates
of depression, anxiety trauma PTSD and like all of those
you typically see with eating disorders.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Speaking with Johanna Kandell, CEO of the National l Aliens
for Eating Disorders, I want to talk to you about
Eating Disorder Awareness Week and just a moment. It's part
of what we're doing trying to bring some awareness to this.
I would imagine something like this, like with so many
of these mental health issues, early detection, earlier intervention is critical,

(07:17):
isn't it?

Speaker 3 (07:19):
Absolutely because the longer that someone experiences their eating disorder,
the more likely it's going to be very difficult. Because
you know, oftentimes when I share about my personal experience
with with my eating disorder, people say, well, it sounds miserable,
it sounds like a nightmare, And I say to them,
it was the hardest ten years of my life. And
at the same time, it's how I coped, it's how

(07:41):
I navigated, and so for me, my eating disorder went
undetected for ten years. But if you notice simes, if
you notice symptoms, please reach out. The Alliance can connect
you with providers, with treatment centers, with groups that can
help not only the person that is struggling, but as
well as the family unit, the support unit, because you

(08:03):
do not have to navigate this journey alone.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
Does it disproportionately these eating disorders affect younger Americans?

Speaker 3 (08:13):
You know what, we see an over concentration of individuals
younger than the age of thirty thirty five. But I
will tell you that at the Alliance, we hold the
National Helpline and twenty five percent of all of our
calls are for individuals over the age of forty five.
So that really does shatter the idea that eating disorders
are only happening to kids. But we also have to

(08:35):
take a look that six percent of all of our
calls into our helpline are for individuals younger than the
age of twelve, and just twenty eight percent are for
individuals between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. So again,
I think across the spectrum, but definitely paying attention to
our kiddos, our young adults, and definitely we know that

(08:57):
we have a huge uptick in midlife and beyond as well.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
I hope this isn't offensive, and I don't mean for
it to be. I'm looking at you, You're you're beautiful,
And it reminded me of the idea that it's not
how somebody views the person with the eating disorder, is
how the it's how the person with the eating disorder
views themselves, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
That's exactly right. We talk about this, this distortion of
never feeling good enough. So many individuals that are struggling
with eating disorders are very perfectionistic. They're very black or white.
They're very like high achieving, always excelling. And again, it
doesn't really necessarily come from the outside in. It comes

(09:39):
from the inside out. We know that the thing that
causes Right, there's so many different contributors to the development
of eating disorders, right, it's genetics, it's the world, it's
it's inherent temperaments. But we know that it starts with
a negative energy balance where your body, you know, gets
into like this negative energy of not getting enough enough food,

(10:00):
enough calories, and then something will happen. And then that
is where that distortion happens. With sight, with hearing, with
all of that, so you can have the most you know,
what we would say, the most conventionally very good looking,
very smart, very you know, productive, very successful individual, but

(10:20):
yet they're not able to see what everyone else sees.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
What is the connection And we've mentioned it a couple
of times already, between the fact that we live in
the social media age, I would imagine celebrities and influencers
maybe contribute to people's body image issues and maybe also
help by sharing their stories.

Speaker 3 (10:42):
Sure, absolutely, so what we believe is that, you know,
sort of genetics, because we know that of all the
contributing factors of the development of eating disorders, about fifty
to seventy percent is genetics. So if a parent or
a sibling of a parent has had an eating disorder.
You have that genetically predisposition. However, the environment pulls that
proverbial trigger. And you are so right about social the

(11:06):
constant barraging of messaging, the face tuning, the editing, the
you know, we are comparing our everyday life to the
highlight reel of everyone else, right, so we might be
not feeling good about ourselves, and we are connected at
all times. On average, I think teens are on some
type of a social or online five hours a day.

(11:26):
And you know, when you think about that barrage of
perfection of images, of all of that, what is that
doing to us? And so you have all of those
messaging and then on the flip side, though, something that
is beautiful about social media is that it still does
create a community where individuals can see people like you know,

(11:48):
content creators or humans have lived experience that turn around
and say, you know, I've been struggling. I am in recovery,
this is what I went through. You are not alone.
And for the person who is struggle going in silence
and isolation, that becomes the crack in the armor, that
less light and maybe it's the thing that really pushes
them to call an organization like the Alliance to reach

(12:11):
out for help.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
It's a fascinating point. You mentioned that people are genetically
predisposed to this, but when you consider that it's a
mental health issue that contributes to it, it makes perfect sense.
Talk to me about the National Alliance for Eating Disorders,
where you are the CEO. How what are some of
the things that you do to help these people who

(12:33):
come seeking assistance.

Speaker 3 (12:36):
Yeah, absolutely so. The National Alliance for Eating Disorders is
the leading national nonprofit organization and we are there to
be of service. We are there to be of help.
We have a national helpline that is staffed by license
and specialized clinicians, so everyone you talk to when you
pick up the phone is a therapist that specialize in
the treatment to eating disorders. We are open Monday through

(12:57):
Friday from nine a and to seven pm, and you
can call us if you have concerns, if you have worries,
if you're looking for connections to a therapist, a dietitian,
or even a hospital that specializes in eating disorders. We
also offer twenty one free weekly therapists, led support groups,
and people from all fifty states in eighty eight countries

(13:18):
around the world and we have different groups specifically for
you know, just a general eating disorder group for loved ones,
we have a group for LGBTQ individuals, for midlife and
beyond for BIPOC, and these are free and they are
still all led by licensed and specialized providers. We do
a lot of work around advocacy, ensuring that eating disorders

(13:42):
are viewed as serious mental illness and are part of
the general mental health conversation. But more than anything, we
are here to walk next to you on your journey
throughout your eating disorders and into recovery and.

Speaker 2 (13:54):
That help blind for the National Alliance for Eating Disorders
is eight six six six to twelve thirty five, eight
sixty six to twelve thirty five. So a couple final
questions for you, what are the treatments for someone with
an eating disorder?

Speaker 3 (14:13):
Well, and that's really the beauty of our field is
that it is not one size fits all. There there's
different modalities of like cognitive behavioral therapy, family based therapy,
you know, dialectical behavioral therapy. So typically when you're in
recovery or you're seeking recovery from an eating disorder, it
takes a treatment team. So you'll have a therapist. You'll

(14:35):
have a dietician that will help you reintegrate food, because
eating disorders are not about the food, but food is
the mechanism in which right you might have a psychiatrist,
and then that is just outpatient. There's different levels of
care above, whether it's intensive outpatient all the way up
to acute medical stabilization. The one thing that I just

(14:57):
want to share with all of your listeners, and you've
been so generous with your time and I so appreciate
this conversation so much, is that we really need to
view mental health on the same level as physical health.
If you broke your arm, it wouldn't be up to
you to will it to heal on its own. You
did not choose to recover to struggle with this eating disorder.

(15:18):
There are people and places that can and will and
want to help you. So please reach out. Even if
you know we can't find that quote unquote perfect fit,
we will reach out and continue to seek resources until
we find an opportunity and a place for you to heal.
I say this each and every day is my recovery

(15:40):
is the hardest thing I ever did. It was painful,
it was overwhelming, and there are so many times that
I know I nearly lost my life and living beyond
my eating disorder. Now I will tell you it is
the absolute best thing that I ever did, and that
if you are someone you know is struggling, please know
that you're not alone. Please know that it can get better.

(16:02):
Please do not walk on this path by yourself. We
are here and we are ready to help.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
The helpline number is eight sixty six sixty six two
twelve thirty five. That's eight sixty six sixty six two
twelve thirty five for the National Alliance for Eating Disorders.
We've been speaking with a founder and CEO, Johanna Kandell.
Thank you for sharing your story and your struggle. Best
of luck to you every day. Thanks so much for

(16:28):
the time and everything you're doing as well.

Speaker 3 (16:30):
Thank you so so much for having this conversation.

Speaker 2 (16:33):
They say that knowledge is power. That's true no matter
what you're talking about, but especially if you're trying to
raise awareness about important issues affecting our communities, our country,
and our world. Along those lines, it's bring in someone
to discuss one of those issues domestic violence, sexual assault,
issues that stunningly affect one in three women globally more

(16:54):
important the effort to end those things in our society.
Jane Randall is co founder of No More. You can
find out more about the group at no More dot org. Jane,
thanks for sharing some time with us.

Speaker 3 (17:07):
Thank you, thanks for being here.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
I'm being here, Thanks for having me, Thanks thanks for
sharing the time. Let me start off by asking about
No More the idea to begin this group to bring
attention to those issues of domestic violence and sexual assault.
How did it begin? Where did it come from?

Speaker 3 (17:24):
It came from the brain of me and my co founder.
I had been doing work in the corporate sector on
this and realized that what domestic and sexual violence were
really facing was a marketing issue, meaning other issues diseases,
breast cancer, drunk driving, other things had sort of bigger

(17:48):
marketing campaigns around them that helped drive awareness. But this
issue in particular was so hard for people to talk about,
especially then this was formed. You know, if I started
this about fifth teen years ago, so you can imagine it.
Really it's really changed dramatically since then. And we got
together all the domestic and sexual violence organizations and national

(18:09):
organizations and came together and said we want to do
this and worked with them to create the symbol and
the message of no More, and then we've been running
it since.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
The numbers are pretty stunning. I mean they vary from
group to group, but twelve million Americans affected one way
or another by domestic violence sexual assault. Forty one percent
of women twenty six percent of men have experienced sexual violence,
physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner during their lifetime.

(18:40):
Why do you think this issue wasn't getting the attention
of some of the others, as you mentioned, I think.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
It makes people. I know it makes people very uncomfortable.
We live in a society where we're sort of taught
to mind their own business and not get involved, and
you know that is changing a bit. But there's all
sorts of stories of people, you know, hearing things going
on next door and not saying anything. There's a very

(19:10):
famous PSA of a couple in bed and they are
hearing all this noise and fighting and crashing from next door,
and you see the guy reach over and you think
he's going to pick up the phone, and he just
turns out the light. And so these issues need to
be normalized. We need to normalize this conversation which we've
come a long way about it. But if you want

(19:31):
to stop domestic in sexual violence, you need to start young,
and you need to start educating kids. And the best
people do that aside from schools, are parents or people
who are important in their lives. So we really want
to get the message out around that.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
Well, let's talk about some of those challenges that you
found in combating that. I don't know about it. Fear
is the right word, but the lack of people wanting
to take a stand and address these issues.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
You know, it stears a good word actually, and just
discomfort it first of all, anytime you have something with
sex in it, it makes people uncomfortable. I know that sounds
ridiculous when you talk about sexual violence, but you know,
I took this on. This is an issue in my
company that my company had taken on years many years ago,
and Corporate America has played a big role in a

(20:21):
lot of ways on domestic and sexual violence awareness and education.
But it doesn't change the fact that we as a
society from the ground up, need to be more comfortable
talking about these issues. Be more comfortable approaching a colleague
that you think maybe in an abusive relationship, a friend,
a neighbor. You know, we're all so afraid that someone's

(20:43):
going to get mad at us, or that we're going
to be embarrassed right like you're and we're going to
just feel we're just going to feel humiliated by even
approaching someone, so we don't and you know, there's lots
of ways to approach people that will not make them
feel on the defensive, not put you on, you know,
make you feel uncomfortable, and just show that you care.

(21:05):
There's all sorts of stories of I just remember this
one story of a woman who was experiencing domestic violence,
and you can it's sometimes it's very evident in the
workplace if someone is dealing with that at home. And
she said someone her supervisor or someone stopped her and
just asked her how are you, but like very genuinely,
not of passing, how you're doing, how are you? And

(21:27):
she didn't respond, but she said later that it meant
someone cared and that was enough for her. And people
who are in abusive relationships in particular are often very isolated.
That's one way that the abuser gains that power and control.
And so if you are isolated from family and friends

(21:48):
and colleagues and someone's constantly putting you down and constantly
telling you you're worthless and stupid and all of those
horrific things. You begin to believe it. You believe it
because you have nobody else who's going to tell you differently.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
Yeah, and I always say, you never really know what
is going on between those four walls. I mean, we
hear about it all the time in the news. They
were the perfect family. I never would have imagined this
happening to them, So it's kind of hard to figure this.
So how do you get past that? How do you
make people realize that we're all you know, we're all fathers,
we're all sons, we all have mothers and daughters and

(22:22):
sisters and people that we love that could be affected
by this. How do we get past that hesitancy to
actually reach out and see if somebody is okay, somebody
is being affected by these issues, doing exactly.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
What we're doing right now, having conversations, having public discussion
about it. I am a huge fan of educating kids
from the time they're little, not obviously about domestic and
sexual violence per se, but about creating boundaries and friendship
in their friendships, respect, conflict resolution, teaching, kids early what

(23:00):
they can want and expect in a relationship, and if
you can do that broadly, then you create people who
want who are reaching towards healthy relationships. I also think
that talking about healthy relationships as opposed to sort of
the darkness and the worst part of everything allows people

(23:20):
to accept the information better. It's less scary, maybe it
feels less judgmental. And so it's doing a lot of that,
and there's a lot of educations, a lot of different
organizations along with No More that work to educate, you know,
from kids through high school, college and beyond, around healthy

(23:41):
relationships and what that looks like, and then also help
you sort of raise it, but then also teaching about
healthy manhood and what that looks A Call to Men
is a ally organization of ours, and they spend a
lot of time talking about healthy manhood, what that means
and what it doesn't mean. And it's really I've had

(24:04):
the privilege of watching them through their sessions and it's
been amazing to watch sort of people in the audience
like get it, you know, like wait a minute, yeah,
you know, I'm allowed to feel fear, I'm allowed to
feel anger, and I'm allowed to feel sad Like, all
of these feelings are okay. They don't all have to
be channeled into anger. Right, you can be angry, but

(24:27):
sometimes a lot of times anger is fear or sadness.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
It's okay on many different levels, isn't it. It's okay.

Speaker 3 (24:35):
Yes, it's okay to feel and that's really for men
and and then you know, but it is very much
with no More.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
You know.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
One thing that is special about us, frankly, is that
we're global, and there aren't that many. In fact, there
aren't any global domestic and sexual violence organizations and that
is huge because we have chapters in you know, Cameroon
and ECUAD and all these different places around the world

(25:03):
and growing and certainly the UK says no more, Australia
says no more. And that's the no More, the no
More slogan, the no More image, the no More symbol
was created to allow people to rally around it. It
was created as an open source branding programs, right, so

(25:23):
that you know, we'll we'll create the equity, we'll do
a lot of the work, but anybody can use it.
I remember taking one of my kids around to look
at collegism. I would just see no More programs on
campuses that I didn't know were there. Yeah, that was
pretty cool. The other thing, just one one last thing quick.
We also have a global directory, so it's the only

(25:44):
global directory in the world that is a directory of
all domestic and sexual violence organizations around the world, so
that if you're somewhere, if someone's when of your listeners
is traveling and god hopefully they don't need it, but
if they need information, they can go to find them.
Go to no More dot org and find the directory
and get some.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
Help, and it's here with Jane Randell, cole founder of
No More. You can find out more about the group
at no More dot org. How do you measure or
can you measure the effectiveness of these campaigns, these initiatives,
these public service announcements that you make.

Speaker 3 (26:17):
You know, metrics are always really hard, especially when you're
talking about you know, sort of soft stuff right like
it's you know, messaging like this as opposed to an
ad where you can really tell, you know, cricks or
how many people buy the product. You know, it's very
interesting because for years people would say, you know, so

(26:38):
you're doing all this work, and you know, are the
numbers going down? And The truth is that when you
have an incident or when you do a big campaign,
what you see or are numbers of calls to hotlines
going up because it's giving people permission, making them aware
that they're not you know, again at the services and
not alone. There's people out there to help them. So

(27:00):
that's always sort of this weird thing that people are like, oh,
you know, you're doing all this work, it must be
going down, right, and sure not. But but what shows
actually is more people reaching out for help, which is
what we want. But we really are very focused on prevention.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
Do you find that it's a cultural thing. Do you
find that in countries where women are respected more there
is a lower incidence of domestic violence and sexual assault,
because it almost feels like it's a cultural thing here
in our country, where it's always been, you know, the
woman was the homemaker and she was, you know, there

(27:37):
to take care of the man and the whole machismo thing,
and obviously that's changed over the generations. We don't look
at it the same way. And lord knows, I couldn't
even attempt to do with the things that my wife
or my mother has done and raising our families and
running the households, but there was a long time where
we didn't have the same respect for women in our
country that we did for men.

Speaker 3 (27:58):
You know, that's a really interesting question, and there are
definitely many, many different cultural norms in different ways that
different countries approach these issues. But the truth is that
it happens to It can happen anywhere to anyone. It
happens at the highest economic threshold, that happens at the

(28:18):
lowest economic threshold. It may look different. There's lots of
different ways to perpetrate abuse. Is financial abuse, where you
even if the victim is making the money, this is
about power and control, right, So I can exert my power.
Maybe I'm not even to make any money, but I
can exert my power over my partner and prevent them

(28:39):
from spending money or channeling how they can spend money.
I can damage them at their work, things like that.
And verbal abuse, so there may be and verbal abuse
is one of those that's really hard. People think, oh,
we get angry, but verbal abuse isn't about being angry
with each other, right, It's about arguing from You can argue.
Maybe that's your relationship. Maybe you just bicker and argue

(28:59):
and that's how you guys, whoever you are related, But
are you arguing from from an equal playing field? Right?
Does one person have much more power in that relationship
than the other.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
Last thing for you, because not only does it affect
so many people, but there's so many people that you
need to educate about the signs, how to address them
or even the fact that you know, the public at
large and educators and law enforcement and policymakers, how how
do you go about doing that?

Speaker 3 (29:29):
Thankfully, there's a lot of organizations that do this work
on lots of different levels, so there are people that
really specialize in working with law enforcement, that are people
that specialize in working with like I said, college students.
The trick honestly, and this is where it gets harder
and where we need more support from the community is
what they call coordinated community response. Right, So you can't

(29:50):
just have a school educating and no one else doing anything.
You can't just have you know, the police doing education
or addressing the issue and no one else is talking
about it. Really need to bring in everybody, you know,
you need to bring in houses of worship, schools, you know,
community government, police, fire departments, people, you know, really bringing

(30:13):
the whole community together and that way you can address
it sort of from all fronts. And you see that
in some other issues, and hopefully we'll get there in
this one.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
Jane Randell, co founder of no More. You can find
out more about the group and how you can help
or take part at no more dot org. Jane really
appreciate the time, and I'm extremely appreciative for the effort
and everything you're trying to do. Best of luck, continued success,
Thank you, thank you for the opportunity