If you've ever cancelled a date because of how you felt in your body that day — this episode is for you.
Body image and eating disorders don't stay in the kitchen or the gym. They follow us onto the dating app, into the first date, into the bedroom, and into the moments when we finally start to let someone in. And yet, this is a topic that almost never gets talked about in dating spaces.
Madden opens up about her own decade-long experience navigating an eating disorder alongside dating — the restriction before dates, the hypervigilance at dinner, the way her ED behaviors flared up when her anxiety did — and invites therapist and eating disorder specialist Zeynep Demirelli to unpack what's actually going on beneath the surface.
This is not a clinical episode. It's a real, raw, deeply human conversation about shame, attachment, and the longing to be loved exactly as you are.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:
- The difference between body image and eating disorders (and why it matters)
- Why eating disorders are really about attachment and fear of abandonment — not vanity
- When and how to tell a partner about your eating disorder
- How a breakup hits differently when you have an ED — and what your inner critic does with it
- How eating disorders show up in men (and why we miss it)
- Why healing doesn't have to happen before love — it often happens inside it
"Eating disorders have nothing to do with vanity. It's all about shame, attachment, and safety — or the lack of it. For people with eating disorders and severe body image disturbances, their relationship with their body is deeply tied to their sense of worth and their fear of abandonment. Dating doesn't create this fear. It activates it."
- Zeynep Demirelli
CONNECT WITH ZEYNEP DEMIRELLI:
Zeynep is a therapist specializing in eating disorders, body image, and food struggles. Drawn to this work through her own teenage experience with an eating disorder, she brings both clinical expertise and genuine lived understanding to the conversation.
Zeynep's Instagram: @realistic.body.therapist
Zeynep's Substack
CONNECT WITH YOUR HOST MADDEN ZAPPA:
Madden Zappa is a dating and relationship coach who helps people recognize and break the patterns that keep them dating the same person over and over again. Through her podcast "We're Dating the Same Guy," Madden combines vulnerable personal stories with practical frameworks to help listeners date smarter, healthier, and more intentionally. Her approach is refreshingly honest—she's willing to share her own uncomfortable truths and dating mistakes to help others avoid the same cycles. With expertise in attachment styles, dating psychology, and relationship patterns, Madden creates content that speaks to the late-night Google searches we're all too afraid to admit we're making.
Madden's Instagram: @maddenzappa
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