Right before the start of my sophomore year of high school, I shattered my knee cap in a four-wheeling accident. Little did I know that it would be the catalyst to a three-year obsession with food that took me from extreme restriction to what would now be called a binge-eating disorder. I was a three-season athlete which meant I played a different sport every season, and I was eating a ton. I wasn’t stick thin, but being tall and athletic meant that I was in pretty good shape, and had no problem with how I looked prior to this incident. Body image and food were not things I was concerned about freshman year, and when someone commented about how much food I could eat while staying fit, I laughed. I would happily scarf down whatever my mom put on my plate and didn't give a second thought to the size of my jeans (yep, the good old days). 


Now, my obsession with food didn’t start immediately after I broke my knee cap, but developed over the next few months, while comments from others about my body began to penetrate my still-developing brain. “You’re going to get fat, you know? From not being able to move much. Have fun.” Said a boy on my bus who had broken his leg the year prior and was quite large himself. This scared me into trying new, healthier foods. I remember trying green beans for the first time and being amazed that vegetables could taste so good. With my newfound love for veggies and the fear of ballooning in size, I did what I could to stay active despite the fact that I was on crutches. Instead of gaining weight, I actually lost ten pounds after my accident, and that was when the affirming messages from my family and friends started coming in, saying that I looked “great”. I can’t count the number of compliments I got about my weight loss, and I had not even been overweight to begin with! Most of this weight had actually been from the muscle loss in my leg, and I thought it looked disgustingly thin. What I did enjoy was all the attention and compliments that my weight loss had gotten me, and so I thought, “what if I lose more?”. 


I want to give credit where credit is due: my mother never wanted me to lose weight. She had actually acknowledged that my leg was in fact, disgustingly thin, and she was always encouraging me to eat. Sometimes I think about those times and wonder “what if I had a mother that thought this weight loss was as great as everyone else thought it was?”. Eventually, my knee healed, I was no longer on crutches and I could get back to what I loved: sports. I had healed just in time for basketball tryouts and although I was in incredible pain when running, not only was I attending every practice and game, but I was going to the gym on top of it. Our coach estimated we should be eating around 3,000 calories a day, and I was probably eating 1,200-1,500, and at my lowest point, around 1,000.  I was never anorexic, I had seen articles about the dangers of damaging your metabolism from not eating, but I wasn’t okay either. I developed “fear foods” that included things like bananas (too much sugar!), peanut butter (too many calories!), and cereal (too much of both). I resorted to eating exactly six almonds and an apple for breakfast, ½ cup of cottage cheese and five crackers for lunch, a snack of baby carrots and hummus, and one of those 200 calorie oatmeal packets for dinner. I remember sitting at the table for dinner with my high school boyfriend and my mom, them both trying to get me to eat the chopped suey my mom had made, and me refusing anything but oatmeal even though I had just came from the gym and was starving. When I went to sleepovers, I became anxious in the morning at the thought of being pressured to eat pancakes or sugary cereals, and I would make my mom come get me early. I was a shell of my normal self. I had read somewhere that shaking your legs and tapping your foot could burn calories so I would do this all day at school. I was following “thinspo” accounts on tumblr and desperately trying to lose more and more weight. I can recall being in the car with my grandmother one day, someone who does not like to discuss anything “too personal” and she blurted out “are you making yourself throw up?”. I was stunned, not sure how to reply, but eventually whispered “no. Why?”. She went on to say she thought I was getting too thin, I assured her everything was fine, that I ate every day, pointing out that I don’t even know how to make myself throw up, and we never discussed it again.  


Just when I thought this was becoming my new normal, Easter of 2012, I binged for the very first time. It was a feeling I had never experienced before, I felt sick to my stomach at the end of the day. Not knowing what triggered it, I went on to binging multiple times per week.


According to the mayolinic.org, binge-eating disorder consists of the following symptoms: "Eating unusually large amounts of food in a specific amount of time, such as over a two-hour period. Feeling that your eating behavior is out of control. Eating even when you're full or not hungry. Eating rapidly during binge episodes. Eating until you're uncomfortably full. Frequently eating alone or in secret. Feeling depressed, disgusted, ashamed, guilty, or upset about your eating. Frequently dieting, possibly without weight loss” Binge-eating disorder - Symptoms and causes - Mayo Clinic


I was eating family-size bags of chips and hiding the trash in my nightstand drawers. I was shoving four granola bars in my mouth until I felt physically ill. I had no idea what was happening to me, but I felt like I couldn’t stop. I would plan out binges, dreaming and writing down the number of Oreos, donuts, and candy I would consume. I was still restricting on days I wasn’t binging, it was a crazy cycle that left me exhausted, uncomfortable, and mentally fucked up. 


This binge-eating continued into my first year of college. I was on my own for the first time, had developed intense social anxiety, and was left to my own devices. I began stealing my roommate's snacks (Sorry Maddie!) and was generally not taking care of myself. I was laying in bed if I wasn’t in class, and I wouldn’t go to the dining hall without my roommate which meant I was eating out a lot because she was a busy engineering major with other friends. I forced myself to therapy second semester and the funny thing was, I never once talked about food or my food “issues”. We talked about my new anxieties surrounding social situations, boyfriend problems, and other typical therapy stuff. 


I don’t know when it happened, or why, but eventually my food fears went away and I had peace surrounding food. I’m happy to say I no longer struggle with food, and I eat what I want and stop when I’m full. Intuitive eating is my jam. When I look back now, I cringe and think about what a weird time in my life that was, and that I’m lucky I made it out of that “phase” with no real damage done to my body or my psyche. 


Next time you go to comment on someone’s body, whether you think it's a compliment or not, DON’T! There are far better compliments you can give someone that has nothing to do with their body. You never, ever know what is going on in someone's head. And the next time you go to say something like “I’m so BAD for eating _”, DON’T! Fuck that noise. Food is neither good nor bad and we have to stop equating our worth with what we’re putting in our mouths or the size of our waists.


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