Holistic Health Radio Episode 18: Recovery Isn’t Linear with Cameron Yoder

Click above to listen to Episode 18 of Holistic Health Radio. You can also subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so you never miss an episode. If you enjoy the content be sure to say hi and leave us a 5-star review.

Listen & Subscribe

Click above to listen to Episode 18 of Holistic Health Radio. You can also subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so you never miss an episode. If you enjoy the content be sure to say hi and leave us a 5-star review.

Episode Summary

Today I’m joined by Cameron Yoder, a youtuber, eating disorder and mental health advocate empowering others to achieve full recovery by sharing his own experiences. Despite the stereotype that eating disorders only occur in women, about one in three people struggling with an eating disorder is male. In the United States alone, an estimated 10 million men will be affected by eating disorders at some point in their lifetime.

However, due to the huge cultural bias and stigma attached, men are much less likely to seek treatment for eating disorders or subclinical eating disorder behaviours such as fasting or excessive exercise. But as we know, asking for and getting help is essential to achieving full recovery. I believe there needs to be a more balanced discussion and gender representation of eating disorders, which is why I’m excited to chat to Cameron today. In this episode we discuss:

• His own eating disorder journey
• The stigmatisation of eating disorders in males
• How our culture perpetuates unrealistic body expectations of men just as much as it does women
• What helped facilitate his recovery and how he overcame common roadblocks such as weight gain, eating fear foods, and reducing excessive exercise
• How we can promote better body image in men and so much more

Speaker Background – Cameron Yoder

Can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

To start – my name’s Cameron Yoder! I currently live in Los Angeles, California after having left my previous job as an E-Commerce Expert / Public Speaker and Personality in Indianapolis, Indiana. I moved to California to chase a couple dreams, one of which was growing an Eating Disorder Awareness platform. I started a handful of e-commerce businesses with my business partner, who I actually live with out here in California (along with  her husband)

At the moment I’m working on a couple of businesses we’ve started, and am actively trying to raise awareness for eating disorder recovery. Apart from that I’m mostly just trying to live life to the fullest out here.

In your own words, please describe your own health journey and where you’re with it now.

It could take a LONGGG time to go through the whole journey here, so I’ll try to keep it brief! My own health/body image journey started when I began developing an eating disorder back in middle school as a 12/13 year old. I was always pretty tough on myself as a kid, and this was where most of what lead to the eating disorder came from – me being my own worst enemy. No one else really put me down, called me ‘fat’ or anything like that at all. I had incredible parents, an incredible family, and a great community to grow up in. Even through all of that though, I always put myself down and never really believed in myself. That carried through to the point of developing an eating disorder in the middle of 7th grade.

I recovered through high school, relapsed and recovered through college. Through it all, I can easily say that I’ve come to understand who I am through this entire process more than ever before. Before, I let what I thought other people were thinking or saying about me carry too much weight. I was giving too much value to what other people were saying, thinking or doing, and hadn’t given enough value to how I felt or what I thought.

This carries over into today, where I’m more confident (and accepting) of who I am than I’ve ever been in my entire life. Recovering from an eating disorder twice really puts a lot of different perspectives in front of you. I’ve spent the last year specifically taking a deep dive into understanding who I am, what I aim to achieve in life, and how I’m going to get there. I’m more loving of my body, mind and spirit then I’ve ever been, and am extremely optimistic about what’s next. It’s a continuous process, but I’ve taken the time to know who I am and love who that person is.

What are you passionate about at work and in your own personal life?

I’ve always said this, but I’m passionate about people. Helping others will always be at the top of my ‘passion list’. I’m passionate about impact as well! I left my secure job in Indianapolis to pursue impact – to pursue what I actually wanted to do in life, which is to help people on a macro-scale however I can.

I’m passionate about speaking as well! I love to be in front of people, love to talk about what I’ve learned (in and out of eating disorders) to groups of people.

I’m passionate about growth, passionate about learning – about always trying to take things to the next level. I feel like I found out from an early age what really brings me ‘life’, but also felt like I always pushed against just going for those things – pursuing those things as an actual career / life path. This past year has been my first small step into what I feel I’m supposed to be doing.

I’m also pretty passionate about working out / lifting weights! I’ll talk about this most likely in the podcast, but it really was lifting that allowed me to jump into recovery in college, after my relapse!

Where can we find out more about you?

I’m actively posting about my story / how I recovered on Instagram and YouTube! Feel completely free to reach out to me on either platform, i’ll keep an eye out for you!

Instagram: @cameronyoder

Youtube: Cameron Yoder