This one time at band camp...
I was 14; quickly falling for a blond hair, blue eyed upperclassman. In 7 days of band camp, I had lost 10 pounds. I wasn't even trying to; I just didn't want to eat the crappy band camp food and was on the field for 9 hours a day at the beginning of August. Many people approached me telling me that I needed to eat, but I just wasn't hungry. At the end of the week I saw my new body and I figured I could continue this new trend of not eating. That same blonde haired, blue eyed boy was noticing me, complimenting my weight loss and refusing to allow his friends to try to help me, because he was all I "needed" (While that's another story for another time, the point is this. I was young, dumb, and desperate for affection from the men around me and acceptance from the women around me)
I was 14; quickly falling for a blond hair, blue eyed upperclassman. In 7 days of band camp, I had lost 10 pounds. I wasn't even trying to; I just didn't want to eat the crappy band camp food and was on the field for 9 hours a day at the beginning of August. Many people approached me telling me that I needed to eat, but I just wasn't hungry. At the end of the week I saw my new body and I figured I could continue this new trend of not eating. That same blonde haired, blue eyed boy was noticing me, complimenting my weight loss and refusing to allow his friends to try to help me, because he was all I "needed" (While that's another story for another time, the point is this. I was young, dumb, and desperate for affection from the men around me and acceptance from the women around me)
Looking back, I would have never considered myself hugely fat, but
I was definitely never truly healthy and I was definitely never the image of a
thin super model walking the runway that I had grown up seeing in the late
‘90’s and early 2000’s.
When I was fourteen I started a decade long journey in following
popular culture regarding my body. I destroyed my body, destroyed it again, and
again, and finally, with the new acceptance growing in culture, I’ve come to
accept my body and love it and keep it well because I love it, not because I
hate it.
Once the winter of my freshman year rolled
around, I started swimming competitively for my high school; I quickly realized
that I could not make it through a 2 hours practice after spending a day
starving myself. This is where my binging began. I started to realize that with
dry-land practice every morning, 2 hours in the pool every evening, meets on
Saturday, and an extra practice on Sunday that I could eat whatever I wanted
and still be at peak physical shape. I went zero --> sixty in no
time flat. I had traded in my weakness and starvation for the best biceps I've
ever had and binging daily after practice on every carb I could get my hands
on..
It wasn't until swimming was over that I started
purging. Looking back, my obsessive work out regime during swim season was a
form of purging, but it was working out, so that's a good thing? Right?
Wrong.
"Remember
that appearances can be deceiving.
Just
because a person might look fit doesn’t mean they’re healthy"
While my workouts were coach approved, my
mentality was complete chaos. I viewed food as a comfort to my total lack of
respect for the man who was pushing the team to their physical and mental
limits. Food was my comfort when I choked at sectionals and my coach refused to
talk to me after the race. Food tasted amazing and numbed my exhaustion and
general distaste for a life that revolved around swimming. And it was fine. It
was all fine, until I stopped working out at the rate I was but continued to
eat at the rate I had become accustomed to. I started gaining weight rapidly.
It was absolutely terrifying. All I could think about when I watched TV,
or got onto social media was
“How do I
look like that? How ON EARTH can I look like that?”
----
Okay, so, it’s quite possible that one may argue that the media doesn’t really
affect us as women, it only affects us if we choose to let it, etc. {I’ll admit
it, I used to say that, too} But let me just throw a quick statistic at you. In
a presentation given by Lori Peters regarding Popular Culture’s Influence on
the
Mental
Health and Body Image of Girls and Women she mentions a study done by “The APA [which]
reported that frequent media exposure to cultural beauty ideals is associated
with higher rates of eating disorders” (Peters, 2) while another study “of
12,000 children ages 9-14 found that media involvement actually preceded the
onset of weight concerns and increased girls’ efforts to look like their media
ideals” (Peters, 2) ---
Moving
on.
One night, at my job at a busy restaurant as a
hostess, I hadn't had time to eat all day, and was running on two red bulls,
the combination of an empty stomach and way too much red bull caused me to get
sick. The second the minimal contents of my stomach hit the water of the toilet
bowl, I can remember immediately thinking "I could do this"
It's almost like I decided and I never looked
back.
Most people will tell you they didn't
"decide" to be bulimic, it just kind of happened.
But I can tell you, for me, personally, I chose
to binge and purge.
It was the best of both worlds.
I got to eat WHATEVER I wanted.
And not fear getting fat, in fact, I looked
forward to losing weight.
It was the ultimate
experience of having my cake and eating it too.
And people were noticing. I dropped the weight
I'd gained (+more) quicker than I had packed it on. My collar bones were
sticking out, I could see my ribs, I was wearing the smallest size pant I've
ever been in, I looked the way I desired. I looked the way that women in
magazine ads looked, and life was.. Life was SHITTY.
While I looked thin, I never looked sickly.
That's what's so terrifying about eating disorders. A person doesn't have to be
purely skin and bones to be dangerously ill.
“Just because my bone structure stopped me from
being the size 00 everyone pictures, doesn’t mean that I wasn’t in an
incredibly unsafe and unhealthy place,” Brittany Mills
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While I still maintained the stereotypical body shape of a swimmer (which, almost 10 years later, I've finally learned to embrace) I was killing myself, quite literally, from the inside out.
While I still maintained the stereotypical body shape of a swimmer (which, almost 10 years later, I've finally learned to embrace) I was killing myself, quite literally, from the inside out.
I spent my days planning when I would binge, and
when I would purge. It was a routine. I'd eat minimal to no breakfast, binge at
lunch, wait until 6th period, where, somehow, I had the most lax teachers, and
would go to the bathroom, purge, and walk back into class like nothing
happened. I'd eat dinner with my family and then immediately excuse myself to
"take a shower"... using the sounds of the water to cover up the
disgusting sounds of self-hatred and desperation.
ED (my sweetly, pet-named eating disorder,
commonly compared to a controlling significant other) soon took over my life. I
was unable to love those around me; I was unable to function properly. BUT it was fine, because I was thin and
pretty..
…and by pretty I mean not pretty at all. My hair
was thinning, bags under my eyes started forming, and any “happiness that makes
women beautiful” was drained from my body.
My life was scheduled around when I could binge
and purge – or if I had just binged, and didn’t see an opportunity to purge, I
became desperate. At first, getting sick only happened at home, and eventually
I became the master of the “perfect time” to excuse myself, make sure no one
was in the bathroom and purge. I even learned how to make myself sick as
quickly as possible, because I couldn’t risk getting caught being totally
controlled by ED.
ED destroyed my faith, my relationship with my
family, my friends, and God forbid any man who tried to connect with me on a
romantic level because
“I could never accept that someone actually found me attractive” (Williams, 178)
Ed was first in my life, and destroyed any
possible competition for my attention. Everywhere I looked, I saw Ed.
And so do young people, everywhere.
They may not have a diagnosed eating disorder,
but an overwhelming number of young people have self-image issues from the
media because
“the average young
person is exposed to roughly 6.5 hours of the mass media, absorbing roughly
3,000 advertisements. (Peters, 1)
That’s 6.5 hours of ads, television, models, and the news
telling us what’s right, what’s attractive, and what’s “in”.
Every time I was exposed to mass media, I was
exposed to Ed.
And while Ed never left a mark, my body was
falling apart from the inside out. Stomach acid eroding my esophagus, my hair
fell out, my cycle couldn’t regulate itself, and my mental state was unstable
to say the least.
Recovery came slowly. At first, it “wasn’t a
problem” and “I could stop if I wanted to”.. Just as an abusive relationship, I
wasn’t ready to admit that ED was destroying me. I loved ED, my bulimia
comforted me, Ed gave me the body and attention I so deeply desired.
But, recovery came. Thanks to a lot of therapy,
loving family and friends, a new found love for Jesus, and.. surprisingly popular culture.
Throughout recovery, (I consider myself
constantly in recovery, because every day it’s a battle not to turn to food for
comfort) I have lost drastic amounts of weight and gained drastic amounts of
weight, multiple times. Because every time I found a new “lifestyle” whether it
be paleo, gluten/dairy free, minimal carbs, minimal fats, whatever it was, it
worked.. but it never stuck, because these “diets” were just Ed coming at me
dressed up in a suit, holding flowers, promising never to fail me, again.
FREEDOM
At the age of 23, just months away from the 10
year “anniversary” of when Ed started inching "his" way into my life. I am
confident and strong enough to say that I am fine without him. Do I miss "him"? Sometimes.
Do I think going back would be a good idea? No.
While recovery took help from many personal
areas of my life; continued recovery has created a passion in me that the
popular culture is starting to take notice of
Self love.
While I do promote fitness and health, I promote
it because ultimately that is what is best for your body, and in turn, the
individual. I promote fitness out of self-love, not self-hate. I promote
accepting your body, being proud of your scars, stretch marks, rolls, and
imperfections.
I believe in empowering women to embrace their bodies and
not conform to a stereotype. And
amazingly, this belief, in part, has been shaped by popular culture begging a
revolution.
Don’t get me wrong. The majority of ads are still
maintaining the impossibly perfect body shape, but some companies are pushing
super tiny, perfectly rounded lines of society.
I have never been so proud to say that I worked for Aerie
when I was in high school than I am at this point in time. If you don’t know
what Aerie is; know this.. It’s American Eagle’s less flashy, more casual
version of PINK by Victoria’s Secret.
Naturally, due to its product, Aerie ads feature women in
bras and underwear, swimsuits, and sleepwear. And recently, Aerie has made a
commitment that has, quite literally, brought me to tears.
Aerie is not the only
well-known name that’s taking a stance for women. Dove’s Real Beauty campaign
is getting a lot of recognition
I appreciate these movements so deeply because while the
ideal body type changes over time, each individual body type cannot change
accordingly.
Cofer explains this awful phenomenon perfectly as she wraps
up her story about her body with this statement.
“My skin color, my size, and my appearance were variables-
things that were judged according to my current self-image, the aesthetic
values of the times, the place I was in and the people I met” (Cofer, 313)
Now, pack to Lori Peters, the woman who gave a presentation
on how damaging the media and popular culture is to the self-love of young
people.
The average young
person is exposed to roughly 6.5 hours of the mass media, absorbing roughly
3,000 advertisements. (Peters, 1) Imagine how impactful these few companies
can be because their ads are different. These companies are challenging the norm
and people are noticing.
------------------------------------------
Still think the ideal body shape has always been the same?
See an evolution of the ideal woman’s body in 3:09 minutes.
I find it hard to believe that anyone can watch this and disagree with the fact that, as women, there is no possible way to keep up with the changing ideals for our bodies, and as a culture, we need to fight the idea that there is one body type that is accepted and valued.
SOURCES
http://www.thegreatfitnessexperiment.com/2014/06/the-rising-epidemic-of-hidden-eating-disorders-im-disordered-but-not-diseased.html
http://www.ulifeline.org/articles/401-exercise-bulimia
No comments:
Post a Comment