I knew I had a problem when it seemed like my entire existence had become an equation. I was constantly turning over numbers in my head: how many calories had I consumed today, and how many was I going to burn off? Sometimes, when I went over the ridiculously low amount of calories I had set for myself in a given day, I decided I shouldn’t eat for a couple days.
I wish I could say my experience was a sad anomaly, but unfortunately it isn’t. In 2002, 1.5% of Canadian girls and women between 15 and 24 had eating disorders. In 2008 40% of girls in grades in 9 and 10 thought they were “too fat.” Such statistics are cringe worthy to hear from children whose bodies are still developing. I had thought that I had an adult body when I was twelve because I had stopped growing in height, but I never realized that bodies continue to develop into early adulthood. This is a fact that also seems to be overlooked when warning first year university students about the dreaded “freshman fifteen,” even though weight gain around age 17-19 could very well be a normal part of someone’s healthy development.
Behaviours that comprise disordered eating can be easy to brush off as “no big deal,” because many are behaviours that seem commonplace. Behaviours that we see replicated, in varying degrees, by many of the women around us. It can seem like obsessively counting calories is normal. After we eat a dessert or a large meal we talk about “burning it off,” and say we, “look so fat” when eating certain foods.
There are many different ideas and theories as to why disordered eating is so prevalent among girls and women. These include thinking we do not deserve to occupy too much space, or being overwhelmed by expectations and wanting to get at least one thing “right.” I know that I loved to hear the admiration in peoples’ voices when they remarked on how thin I was. Others reasons can include feeling out of control and wanting to feel we have control over something in our lives. The dietician that I saw to help me recover told me that she sometimes refers to “healthy” as a four-letter word. She noted that in her practice people often described their eating disorders originating in a desire to be “healthier,” to eat “better,” or lose weight through exercise.
It really is incredible how we have been socialized to understand our bodies as objects of a gaze instead of our own vessels to inhabit. This is part of a narrative that we are all told and shown repeatedly in our North American society. We learn that women are for looking at. And in a culture where slim bodies are idealized, a woman who is not, or does not perceive herself to be slim, may understand herself as not worth looking at, and, by extension, not worth much of anything.
What is not so often taught is that our bodies exist for ourselves. They belong to us, not to our friends, our significant others, our parents, or the media, or anyone who may be interested in looking at them. Us.
Through working with both a dietician and a psychologist, I was able to escape the downward spiral disordered eating had led me into. Now I don’t know how to explain to people that I’m not upset or ashamed that I don’t fit into my prom dress anymore or that, no, I actually don’t want to hear how many calories are in that. But I am glad that for me, my definition of “health” now has much more to do with how I experience my life, than what I do or don’t eat.