I Only Ate Half and I Melted Away

Tomorrow is Book Club day over on the Silicon Valley Moms Blogs and this month we've read It Started with Pop-Tarts by Lori Hanson, a book about how she delt with her bulimia. This post was inspired by the book and my thoughts on eating disorder issues.

Two years ago, I took Bella into our local dance store to get her a new dance outfit. This shopping trip was a rare trip, something she'd been looking forward to and planning for weeks. She was about to turn five and this would be her first year in a real dance school. We took our time walking around the store, trying out tutus in different styles and making sure her ballet slippers fit just right. There was so much to choose from: short sleeve, long sleeve, sleeveless, attached skirt, sparkles or plain. We spent a delicious hour selecting the outfit that would make her feel like the prettiest ballerina.

By the time we walked up to the register to pay, my mind was already on the next set of errands on my list. I looked up absently at the ageing dancer behind the counter. She was smiling falsely and speaking to Bella who was busy trying to hide behind my legs.

"What a pretty girl you are! You really have a beautiful dancer's body. So thin and long! Just gorgeous."

Bella didn't say anything back, just looked down at her feet and tugged my hand towards the door. I was speechless. I knew she meant well, but still she had no right to comment on my daughter's body, to give her a first taste of the power of body image. The store owner had planted the seed of fear in Bella, fear that she could lose the dancer's body she hadn't even known she had until that moment.

I never worried about my weight as a child until I went off to boarding school for the last two years of high school. A continent away from my family at sixteen, I turned to large pizzas and quarts of Ben & Jerry's cookie dough to dull my homesickness and academic stress. I added thirty pounds to my slim frame which I didn't lose until sophomore year in college.

My weight loss method wasn't a healthy, rational diet. I basically starved myself by eating half of what I wanted: half a bagel, half a Snackwell cookie, or half a banana. I craved the energy I derived from being slightly hungry all the time. Of course, I lost more than the thirty pounds I had put on and got down to 105 pounds. I thought I looked so beautiful, so lean and thin. When my mom met me at the airport after school ended in June, she asked me if I had AIDS.

I wrestled with my flirtation with anorexia for the next year before finally deciding that I loved food too much to be hungry all the time. Although I now have a healthy relationship with food, I occasionally slide back into old obsessive patterns, only to be brought back to reality by my husband who's never afraid of telling me I'm acting crazy.

I just hope that when my daughters start to wrestle with their own body image demons, they'll be able to learn to learn from my mistakes. Or that at the very least, I'll be able to reach them before they too decide to eat half of what their body tells them they need.