Food as an Idol

In Food as an Idol: Finding Freedom from Disordered Eating Pamela K. Orgeron, the Author and Editor, a Board Certified Christian Counselor and an Advanced Christian Life Coach combines her education with her life experience as a recovered bulimic to compile a book that will be helpful to others struggling with disordered eating issues and help in the prevention of disordered eating in today’s world. Additionally, clinicians will find Food as an Idol helpful in working with clients who display disordered eating.

In Food as an Idol Orgeron discusses the types, causes, consequences, and ways of conquering disordered eating in Sections 1-4, respectively. Orgeron considers disordered eating throughout the book on a continuum where persons who do not display dieting, bingeing, purging, or other eating disorder behaviors are on the lower end. Persons hospitalized with clinically diagnosed eating disorders identified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-V), published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) (2013) fall on the upper end. Thus, Orgeron divides Section 1, Types of Disordered Eating into three chapters: What about Dieting?; Classifications of Eating Disorders; and, Overweight and Obesity. Section 2 covers individual factors, family factors, sociocultural factors, biological factors, and spiritual factors that contribute to the cause, or etiology of disordered eating. In Section 3 Orgeron discusses the physical and psychosocial consequences of disordered eating. Section 4, Conquering Disordered Eating, is divided into four chapters: Treatment of Eating Disorders; A Wholistic Model in Treating Disordered Eating; A Spiritual Approach to Healing; and, Christian Mindfulness, A Path to Healing.

In Section 5 of Food as an Idol Orgeron includes information on and suggestions for the prevention of disordered eating. Topics include types of prevention, basic principles of prevention, the role of the educator, the role of school counselors, and the role of parents/primary caregivers. In Section 6: Special Topics, Orgeron takes a closer look at disordered eating in athletes, adolescents, pregnancy, higher education, males, and in the church.

The subtitle to this book, Finding Freedom From Disordered Eating contrasts with the title. The title Food as an Idol states the problem, while the subtitle Finding Freedom from Disordered Eating points to the solution. Orgeron believes that by writing this book others reading this book will find the freedom she found from disordered eating through Jesus Christ and His Word.