Can I see?

Diet Zero!

I’ve been reading with interest the big debate about size Zero models in Milan during the Fashion Week. Allegedly girls are being inspected by doctors, to ensure that they are healthy with a reasonable BMI to avoid any more deaths of supposedly “healthy” girls. There is lots of hoo-hah around at the moment that photos of skinny girls are giving poor body image to young girls and positively encouraging anorexia.

As a teenager I had a battle with food, I tried to starve myself and became very thin and my parents took me to the doctor. I was encouraged to eat more and to talk about my anxieties it was a funny time at home as my parents were setting up a new business and had sold our house, so we were living with some friends of my parents and it was a nightmare. I don’t think I was looking to be skinny, I guess I just wanted to control my life as I felt that things were very out of control. My dad took it quite badly and it was shock for me seeing him so upset. Mealtimes were distressing as every mouthful was analysed and my dad would get really angry if I wouldn’t clear my plate, but the thought would make me feel quite sick. I would be quite sneaky and hide food and feed it to the dog to pretend that I’d eaten. I used to swill some milk round a bowl in the morning to pretend I’d eaten breakfast and throw my packed lunch in the bin at school. I guess I did look a sight. All poking out bones and skinny legs, but I wanted to be small and so I’d feel protected. My dad said that my legs should have messages tied to them as they were like pigeons!

A few years later I had another spell when I was about 17, again my mum took me to the doctor who threatened me to either pull myself together and eat or be hospitalised. I had to have a series of injections to fill my body with nutrients I wasn’t getting from food and it was horrible. I can’t even remember now what triggered that spell off but I sorted myself out and started eating again. I did really well through uni, and the extra drinking and poor diet meant I actually put weight on and was the heaviest I’d been in all my life. After uni though I felt down as I couldn’t find a job and was working in customer services on a help desk and I just stopped eating again as a way to feel better about my jobless state. I lost a lot of weight again and found it hard to wear clothes that didn’t hang round me like a tramp! I was living away from home but when my mum saw me she was horrified and made me promise to eat properly which I started to do once I got a permanent job.

My final spell was a few years ago when I was having a terrible time at work, I had a manager who I hated, and work was just terrible, so I stopped eating again. I felt better for skipping meals and going to the gym, I was going 3 lunch times a week and after work. Whilst I was in tears most day about my job, the buzz of light-headedness an faint from hunger made me feel better, again my hip bones jutting out gave me some kind of weird satisfaction that I was in control of some part of my life, even if work was rubbish. I eventually resigned and got a different job, and started eating normally again. Ironically I’ve been trying to tone up and lose a bit of weight again. I’m a size 10 these days, which is quite normal, but to me it’s a bit too wobbly!! When you look in magazines at the slim model girls, I know that is how I want to look.

Whilst I haven’t been dangerously ill through not eating and not been hospitalised I have some kind of control issue with food. If I’m feeling down and unhappy about things the best way to feel in control is to starve myself. I feel better when I get hunger pangs as in a way I’m in control of my body and if I’ve decided I’m not going to eat then I won’t. That’s why I don’t agree there is a total link with showing a slim model to teenage girls and anorexia, I think that there has to be that kind of need for control to be there in the first place. Whilst telling young girls that they are dough-balls as one recently fired model booker did, isn’t good for self-esteem or body image.

I regret my actions over the past, my body hormones are all over the place and I’ve been told I’m unlikely to have children. I’ve been referred to a specialist at Bolton to sort my inners out but everything moves so slowly on the NHS. I also wonder if starving myself during my formative years has left me smaller than I would be, no womanly curves for me!!! Perhaps if I let myself put on weight then maybe I would have a more rounded body but I’m resolute in not wanting to look flabby. An ex said he loved my flat stomach and said he’d play snooker on it. So now I work hard at keeping myself trim, especially the days I like to eat then I’ll eat well.

I guess I’ve no answers to the debate and this is only my opinion on how things have felt for me, and with girls as young as 10 being diagnosed as anorexic there are problems that need to be addressed. Love yourselves girls!!!

Do I sound a bit mental??!!!!! - Don't answer that!!

posted by Pixie @ 4:34 PM