Busy Brains and Biohacking: Eating Disorders and the Tech Sector
Written by ‘Ai Pono Hawaii Staff Writer
The tech sector is a fast-paced industry, where people in the field are “always on” and ready to work. You have to work efficiently and produce high-quality work to stay ahead, especially if you are a woman and/or in a minority. In fact, people in this sector want to get ahead so fast that they start “biohacking” their bodies to do it.
But any one of these factors — perfectionism, biohacking and fad diets, the need to always perform — can lead to a problem. The growing problem comes in the form of eating disorders in the tech sector, among other mental illnesses.
Read on for more information about:
Personality traits of people predisposed to an eating disorder
Why many people in the tech sector have or develop these characteristics
Popular eating habits in the tech sector right now
What biohacking is and why it can be harmful
The quiet mental health crisis in tech
What to do if you are struggling in the tech industry
Productivity, Punctuality, Perfectionism: Characteristics of Tech Professionals and Eating Disorders
Whether you work at a huge corporate tech firm or you’re at a small startup, there’s always competition. Promotions, salary boosts, business expansion — the pressure’s on if you want to climb higher up on the ladder.
This became especially apparent in the tech sector’s shift to remote work due to COVID-19. Remote employment has made the job hiring pool exponentially more vast and competitive. To progress in a career in the tech industry, you have to be highly productive, punctual with your work, and deliver high-quality work.
“High Achiever” Personality Traits Linked to Eating Disorders.
Productivity, perfectionism, and high-achiever status are more present in individuals with eating disorders than the rest of the population. Researchers are not sure what comes first: these character traits or the eating disorder.
If a person entering tech is not already a high achiever, they often have to play catch-up to compete with their peers. They may develop a rigid schedule or mindset that spills over into eating and exercise habits. Or, they may try to control their food and exercise habits due to workplace stress or because they feel out of control at work.
Related: Learn more about the link between perfectionism and eating disorders, and how to overcome perfectionism in eating disorder recovery.
Discrimination in Tech Creates Pressure to Perform
Gender, race, ethnicity, and national origin-based discrimination starts early on for many people. Women entering computer science in college have often had less opportunities to learn coding before freshman year. This already puts them at a disadvantage. Many professors teach at the higher level of males in the class, probably because the majority of the class is male. Often, women are taken less seriously by their male classmates and their professors. Female teaching assistants are even dismissed and criticized by their students.
Minorities who enter the tech field face high levels of discrimination in terms of hiring, salary, promotion, and leadership opportunities. Individuals facing workplace discrimination feel the need to achieve more than their white male counterparts who dominate the tech workforce and hiring management.
Related: This is why eating disorders go unnoticed in the Black community, and why it’s so devastating.
Food and Exercise in Tech Culture
Many tech companies — several of which are “Silicon Valley giants” — have instituted workplace “wellness” programs. In many cases, they specifically target overweight individuals. These programs subtly convey the idea that weight is equivalent to health, and that overweight individuals will require more time off and hospital visits than their straight-sized counterparts. Rigid food and exercise habits have also been tied to higher productivity, so many employees in the tech sector turn towards calorie counting, cutting out food groups, and intense exercise to “keep up.”
What’s really trending in the tech sector right now, though? Fasting — the rebranded form of disordered eating. Fasting (often called intermittent fasting) is the practice of actively denying oneself of nutrition for an extended period of time. People do this with the assumption that fasting is the secret to weight loss, “detoxing”, higher productivity, more energy, and a number of other health benefits. In Silicon Valley, people report a fascination, bordering on an obsession, with “optimizing” themselves.
This “optimization” is believed to give them a sort of competitive edge over their coworkers. Of course, fasting isn’t healthy. It doesn’t give you any sort of advantage. It’s disordered eating. Improper nutrition takes away your energy and your focus.
Biohacking: It’s the Next Level of “Hacking” Your Own Body
Jack Dorsey is famous, not only for his role as Twitter CEO, but for his specific lifestyle. He claims to eat only one meal, dinner, and that he fasts for twenty-two hours a day during the week. He meditates for two hours every day, then walks five miles to Twitter HQ. Most people would call this an eating disorder, but this tech CEO and role model to many calls it biohacking.
The idea behind biohacking isn’t simply about “wellness” — it’s about controlling every aspect of your body, from your sleep to your internal body temperature, even your brain waves — to not only be healthy, but to live as long and as productively as possible. A lot of people in tech are following Mr. Dorsey’s example, which is clearly disordered. They think: “Well, he’s successful, so it must be worth it.”
In Silicon Valley and within companies attempting to mirror that kind of culture, employees really believe: “Why eat, sleep, or take a break when you could be disrupting?”
The Quiet Mental Health Crisis in Tech
Silicon Valley giants and small tech startups both see themselves as pioneers on a mission, warriors of innovation who have to be ready for the constantly shifting industry.
Despite the “strong warrior” profile tech professionals want to convey, people in the tech industry are more likely to have a mental health condition than those in the general population.
A lot of people hide conditions like depression, anxiety, and eating disorders out of the fear that they’ll look weak. It seems like no one else talks about mental health, so the stigma never goes away. Although employers are getting better at addressing mental health in the workplace, employees are reluctant to come forward due to potential discrimination.
When it comes to eating disorders in particular, employees have reported facing workplace discrimination. This is most apparent when it comes to requesting time off and working with their company for insurance coverage. Many also fear that disclosing a mental illness may cost them a promotion because they are viewed as “unstable” or “unreliable.” Mental health-based discrimination in the workplace is illegal, and you do have the right to access eating disorder treatment without any repercussions in the workplace.
Of course we all know that the longer you hide a problem, the worse it will get. It may seem scary to disclose a problem in an environment that encourages you to be “superhuman.” But the longer you stay in an eating disorder, the harder it will be to recover mentally and physically.
If you or someone you love is suffering from an eating disorder, take the first step today and talk to talk to someone about recovery or simply learn more about the eating disorder recovery programs we offer.