A letter from a friend

Since starting the blog I've been overwhelmed by the number of people who've approached me, seeing a lot of themselves in what I've written, and sharing experiences of dieting and body issues.

What has most surprised me however is who those people have been. Mainly young women, no major surprise there, but confident, intelligent, educated women. What shouldn't come as a surprise to me, but does, is that they are all thin. Often I'll gaze longingly at someone's miniscule waist or toned tummy and think "guh, I'd love to have washboard abs... but right now I'd also love a sandwich." What is becoming more and more apparent is that often, those tight arses and rockin' legs are the result of a lot more worrying and introspection than the exterior suggests. Also, the people we are today doesn't reflect in many ways the people we were on the road here, the changes we went through and the experiences we had, pleasant or unpleasant, and at times self imposed.

What I'm saying in a roundabout way is that you can't look at any person and immediately think: eating disorder. Eating disorders are often the best kept secrets, and every anorexic has ways of hiding the fact that they're not eating. It is often only when someone is verging on being dangerously unhealthy that friends and family members call their weight into question, and by then an obsession with food is long formed and deeply ingrained into their lives.

One such person is a dear friend of mine. As someone who helps people daily in their career, she (somewhat ironically) only told me of her own experience with eating disorders and weight obsession after reading the blog.

It touched me greatly that she contacted me, and in fact upset me, to think that I had been so wrapped up in my own business that it had never even occurred to me that Christina* had so much going on.

She has permitted me to share what she wrote here, and for that I thank her. I think many young women feel alone in their fears about weight, and as someone who has been told to "shut the f*$k up" several times when I vouched the opinion that I was fat, I know it's not an easy thing to talk about in public.

However, I think she tells it best (she's a damn good writer) so I'll let her take it from here.

"I was about your age when I began my own dietary exploration. Much of the history you speak of in your blog resonates with me, so I don’t have to tell you much of mine. But I saw Gwyneth Paltrow in the movie Sliding Doors, and, in utter innocence I wondered… What would it feel like to be that thin?

It’s so easy to slip into, and, I think, it’s a life sentence. I don’t give this information out lightly, for many reasons, but I am a, perhaps former, perhaps not, eating disorder sufferer. At my lowest weight, I was five and a half stone. My teeth are ruined from purging. I have enormous issues with eating in public, still. Food remains my enemy, and victory over it is an important of every day for me. I will never be the pretty girl, the smart girl, the creative girl… but I can sure as hell be the thin girl."

"When I first read your blog, I sensed that it would be about more than the mechanics of various diets, and the more you write, the more I think that it is your insights into the mindset that informs the need to lose weight that is the point. You’re so right: there are so many women, of all shapes, makes and walks of life that suffer with body issues, and think – even if they know differently in an intellectual way – that losing weight will make them feel better about themselves. I thought that too, and while being thin didn’t erase any of the problems from my life, I can’t deny that in many ways I did enjoy it.

That’s the heartbreaking part. "

And lastly, an article Christina* wrote, about six months ago.


I Used To Be A Size Twelve

It’s become something of a guilty pleasure – you know, because I still haven’t finished Ulysses yet – but as a young teenager, I was quite happy to admit I enjoyed a good magazine. I started out with the girl comics, and finally began stealing my Mam’s women’s mags, which were filled with a lot of the same stuff you find in them today, with a couple of notable exceptions. Today, magazines seem completely devoted to stories about celebrity, rather than this type of stuff taking up a page or two. And one article I remember very vividly from younger years had a decidedly different slant than it might have today.

The article was entitled ‘None of these girls is a perfect size 12’. I remember it so well because I was filled with young teen angst about my size, and this article implied that size 12, the size I was, was the one to strive for. Theoretically, at least, I was perfect in one regard. These days, if you want to read about that size, you might want to pick up Meg Cabot’s book, ‘Size 12 is not Fat’.

And then came a subtle shift. By the time I reached my late teens, the magazines had gradually begun to tell me that a size 10 was the one we all wanted, the figure that we strove to achieve. Soon, celebrities, because they have to be one step ahead of the posse apparently, were shrinking to a size 8, which became the skinny size, the admirable size. And then there’s now, when size 8 is positively porky, and we’re all talking about size zero, double zero, and becoming some sort of minus size, anti-matter, invisible.

Most of my friends and colleagues aren’t celebrities, and quite a few of them are rather sensible. They come in the same variety of sizes they did when I was that angsty young teen, and I honestly think they all are gorgeous. They’ve grown up, they lived their lives, and they have mighty stories to tell. I have one too, and it’s largely informed by the fact that I’m not a size 12 anymore.

Always conscious of my appearance, I became anorexic in my early twenties. The power of this word has become muted by overuse, partly, and by the fact that anorexia has become so normative among a certain cache of women, but I didn’t just lose a few pounds over a broken heart. People who claim to drop to like, six stone, just like that are mostly lying, because nothing about drastic weight loss happens so easily. Achieving a weight of five and a half stone, as I did, and it was an achievement, takes almighty dedication, and a lot of hard work.

People who say they are tired because they’ve worked hard all day, and people who say they’re hungry because they’ve missed dinner sometimes irk me, sometimes fill me with wonderment. I would have given so much to be like that. Instead, I felt compelled to survive on a small bowl of cornflakes and a couple of pieces of fruit a day, walk four miles to, and four miles from work, and do an hour long aerobics class in the evening. I barely slept, waking constantly in the night with hunger, or a pounding heart that made me fear I was going to die. You don’t know tired and hungry intimately until you’ve been anorexic.

Because it’s horrible. And the celebrities that are grossly underweight live this horrible, dedicated life. They are not people to be admired, emulated. It is awful that we have become trained to think they look good. We think that deprivation, exhaustion and fear are attractive.

I don’t care that Victoria Beckham says she eats like a horse, or whatever. She is lying. If celebrities want to look like that, then fine. But I loathe them for refusing to admit what they have to do to maintain that look. It is unfair, particularly on the young girls and women who think they too can look that way without making huge sacrifices. And believe me, the sacrifices do not simply involve missing a Big Mac meal or two. These people are starving for food, and their bodies are responding appropriately. They are exhausted, they are disinterested, and they cannot think or feel or experience as deeply as a well-nourished person can.

If that’s the look you want, then fine. Just stop lying to me about it.


*Name changed