“Nothing Tastes as Good as Skinny Feels”

  

  I have had my own experiences being affected by an eating disorder.   I had am EDNOS from ages 10  til  about 18.  For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been bigger than other kids my age, both in height and weight.  Most of my family have similar body types as well, except my mother who is tall, thin, and ageless.  In my early teenage years, I could not find women who have similar body types in magazines or in television.  I believed that my weight was not the norm.  I had a distorted view of how large I was and believed that I was extremely overweight and needed to diet when my weight was perfectly normal for my height.  The

Lil' Tiffany

catalyst for my eating disorder was due to getting sick, which caused me to eat very little, so I lost a lot of weight (unintentionally). My mother then rewarded me wit new clothes (none of my old ones fit me anymore) and she said “well,  at least you lost weight out of this,” which took me aback. Then I looked back at all the times she secretly tried to get me to lose weight all my life.  Bullying was an even bigger catalyst.  So, I believed I needed to slim down.
 
  In the past, I had engaged in numerous diets and disordered eating in my, then, never-ending struggle to achieve “the beauty myth.”  “The beauty myth” is a socially constructed set of ideas about how female bodies should appear and behave (Naomi Wolfe).  I also would read magazine articles about models and celebrities and try to implement their diet secrets into my own life.  Skipping meals, substituting water for food when hungry, eating food with little to no calories as possible (when I did eat)- all unhealthy ways of trying to lose weight.
  

With my buddies

   One of the most disturbing memories from this point in my life was the overwhelming positive response to my unhealthy weight loss each time I tried a new diet method.  At one point I was consuming about 300 calories a day max. and exercising in every free moment while at a height of five feet, eight inches when I was seventeen years old.  I lost ten pounds in a week, another ten pounds or so the next week. Fatigued, I could barely stay awake in classes (grades never went down though, surprisingly). Family, other adults, and even my doctor were praising my rapid weight loss.  Some even asked for my dieting secrets and my mother rewarded me with new clothes each cycle of weight I lost- prouder at the number on the scale going down than ever at any of my real accomplishments. 
  
  They saw it as good self control, I began to recognize it as starvation and unhealthy eating habits.  Their compliments at one time were flattering, but feeling the exhaustion from disordered eating- it was a wake-up call.  I then realized that you can’t determine health by appearance only,  because you never know what someone did to attain their slimmer figure.  I realized that I’m not meant to be skinny, and even the models aren’t naturally as thin as they are.
   
  Not only me, but the others around me had taken “the beauty myth” of thinness projected in the modeling industry as being the norm at face value.  I did not looking deeper at the fact that magazines and advertisements prey on our insecurities to sell their diet products and weight loss strategies.  I didn’t consider that if thin was really the norm, why is it that most women’s magazines I see put out diet secrets in every issue?  Surely, if most were naturally thin, they wouldn’t need to put in tips for weight loss!  I succumbed to other’s views, that were disordered from what they saw in the media as well, that I needed to lose weight to be the nonexistent thin norm.  The most common dress size is actually fourteen, which is considered plus-size and is not a high-fashion model’s average size ranging from size zero to four. When in the midst of an ED it’s easy to believe “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” (Kate Moss). It’s like a high, watching the numbers on the scale go down.  I don’t weigh myself anymore.

    Now, on a related note in a slightly different direction: When someone is fat and has an ED, it is very difficult for them to get help. No one believed me. I told my then doctor straight out what I was doing, and the response was “I’m glad to see your weight is down.” And this is from a health professional, so I trusted her. Mind you- I have no health problems. No diabetes, no high-cholesterol, my blood-work is fine, blood-pressure is fine- no “fat-related disorders” and I’m not anywhere near getting in bad health (knock on wood).  As a result, I have since switched doctors. Again, this time out of no-where, she says “so, have you been heavy all your life?” (no, I gained it all in the waiting room /sarcasm) I knew where this was heading. “Yes, and so is the majority of my family” (she’s my mother’s doctor, so she knows she’s thin). The doctor orders me to have blood work done (which all came out normal, like before). I have lost faith in health professionals to be honest.    

On a positive note, I have purchased my first bikini. The heaviest I’ve been, yet the most confident in body and mind. P: Suck it haters~

♥ Tiff