Last week was National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, for those of you whose minds were otherwise occupied. There was a small blip in the East Tennessean about a conference on the subject, I believe, and then a sign or two around campus. As for myself, I paid very little attention to the matter until a nagging question began to whine as incessantly as a twilight mosquito in my ears.
Why is it that I have never written about my own troubled relationship between nourishment and ritual? I write about everything else under the sun, but this I’ve shied away from for seven years. How interesting.
And so, an article was born. You see, for there to be such a thing as a National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, there must be an alarming amount of people affected by it. And thisdoesn’t surprise me, not in American society. We are a people strung out on conflicting messages.
Pick up an ordinary magazine at the grocery store, and on the cover, you will see two dominating themes – “Diets that really work!” or “10 Ways to Shape Up!” floating in white letters above a sumptuous picture of an “Easter Bunny Cake” or “Year’s Best Recipes.”
We are inundated with fast food and soft drink commercials endorsed by athletes, pop idols and models. “Partake of our highly caloric products!” the advertisers bellow relentlessly. Mean-while, Calvin Klein airs commercials of creatures who frolic in slow motion on desert dunes and windswept beaches, fashionable clothing slipping off their lithe bodies and apparently consuming nothing but oxygen and Evian water.
My own battle with my body began, naturally, at the onset of adolescence. In the eighth grade, at the age of 13, I began to feel guilty about every bit of food that I ate. It didn’t matter what it was.
So the oddest feeling began to overwhelm me – I could not let anyone besides my parents or sisters see me eat. Somehow I had twisted the natural function food serves – that of providing the body with nourishment. I felt that deriving pleasure from eating was tantamount to sinning.
I have always been naturally thin, really more bony than anything else. Perhaps I simply started to panic when Mother Nature started slapping on child-bearin’ hips and all the rest. From what I’ve read, this is a fairly normal reaction in girls, although in my case, things took a bizarre turn.
By the time I was a freshman in high school, I had stopped eating or drinking anything in the presence of others, even my best friends. It was not that I wanted to deny myself the food – I ate as soon as I got home. It was the actual process of eating that became painfully unbearable.
Actually eating anything became an emotionally draining experience, done furtively and agonizingly slow. Food had to be torn into tiny bits so that I could eat it without making any mess, without so much as a crumb clinging to my lips. I congratulated myself when I was able to get anything in my stomach – sticking out the rest of the day with a growling belly never was conducive to learning. Things got progressively worse my sophomore year. I could no longer go out to eat with my family or friends, and it was hard to explain to them why. Even sitting down in a restaurant was terrifying. On the rare occasions when my family (my friends never could) convinced me to order something, I would nearly choke when I tried to eat, no matter how hungry I was.
I was the terrified that someone I knew from school or work would see me eating, which is why my anxiety would lessen somewhat if I were out of state. I would constantly be on the lookout for any familiar faces, avoiding eye contact with strangers. My heart would beat faster, my hands would shake, my vision would become unfocused and my head began pounding. It all sounds crazy, irrational, and I was fully aware of it the entire time. But my mind was unrelenting. My anxiety controlled my body.
In my darkest hours, I could no longer even eat in the safety of my own house. Before I could eat anything, all the curtains or blinds had to cover any nearby windows. There were times when I simply ate upstairs in my room after frustrated arguments with my family who wanted me to join them and relax like I used to be able to. At that point, I couldn’t even look at food without feeling a deep shame for needing it. I was disgusted with my body, which I felt had betrayed me by developing curves.
It didn’t go away overnight. It took several years, a few ulcers and some sorely needed self-confidence to chase away my anxiety about food. Perhaps it was a chemical or hormonal imbalance that fueled some sort of bizarre social anxiety.
I do believe that our society over-emphasizes the importance of bodily perfection. Dieting, fitness and beauty products are as big a racket as fashion and fast food. Has anyone seen those “Ab-busters” that supposedly replace real exercise by electronically stimulating your abdomen while you drive or do paperwork? Give me a break. The only safe way to treat your body right is to exercise and eat properly. Refusing meals only slows your metabolism down – your body is compensating for what it is assuming is a period of famine. Oh, by the way, don’t skip breakfast. That’s the worst thing you can do. Mom did know best after all.
One of the campus signs read, “Listen to your body.” What would yours say? “Walk me, feed me real food, not McCrap, give me water, not calorie cola. Don’t bake me to a crisp in the tanning bed, or cut me up to make “perfect” noses, boobs or whatever else you consider a flaw.”
I know it’s hard to love your body, especially for females. But loving how you look is a lot sexier than telling everyone who will listen how much you despise it.
And it’s a lot more fun, too. It’s such a relief for me to be able to go out to eat with my family and friends like a normal person, to socialize and have a good time and to just be able to quiet that belly growl and get on with my life.
Besides, I was missing out on some spectacularly yummy cheese enchiladas and veggie burgers. It was pretty tough to just eat at home when I’m a vegetarian and my family likes nothing better than to throw shrimp and steak on the grill. After a while, even peanut butter and grilled cheese sandwiches lose their appeal.
And believe me, that is a feat in itself.

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