My partner struggles with an addiction to food (esp. sugar) and cycles through bad phases of depression and horrible self-loathing. I don't care about her size- she's beautiful. I am, however, worried about her overall health. (Family has history of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc.)

She is a wonderfully educated woman who works in the psychology industry. So she knows all the benefits of exercise, self-care, etc and she knows all the problems of not taking care of those things. She fully recognizes her depression, and her need to overeat for emotional reasons and when she's stressed.
Even though she has always hyped the benefits of exercise (she's the one who got me going to the gym,) she told me the other day that she has difficulty doing exercise because it makes her too aware of her body. She wants to cry when she gets on the treadmill. She disassociates.

She has been in and out of therapy for years, it seems whenever a T gets close to these issues she stops going. She's fully aware of how her lack of self-care has impacted her overall health and emotional well being but feels just stuck.

Again her body is not the issue, but how she treats herself is. How she views herself is. It makes me so sad because she truly is a beautiful and sexy woman. It's painful to watch her beat herself up so much, but I'm aware there's much more going on here than I can help with. I know it's not mine to "fix" but I am her partner and I can't not be affected.

I was wondering if I could ask, if it's not intrusive, what the best way to support someone with these issues? What really helps? I tell her daily how much I love her, how beautiful she is — as she is— and I try to be as compassionate as possible but at times the self-loathing can be difficult. I listen. I hug. I kindly call her out when i hear her insult herself, but if I try to encourage her in any way —*she gets defensive, angry and shuts down.

(p.s. feel free to call me out if I'm handling this the wrong way or missing something in my own perspective.)