Food and Punishment

An American Tale

Content warning: discussion of eating disorders

It’s the day after Thanksgiving for Americans, and the odds are good that you might feel some shame today regarding food or your body. Maybe you ate past fullness yesterday, maybe you had pie for breakfast today, or maybe you felt like you couldn’t get enough of the food goodness before you yesterday and you’re feeling guilty about it today.

You are not alone.

Maybe you even feel like you need to punish yourself today for what you did or didn’t do yesterday, especially regarding food and exercise.

I know how you feel.

In fact, I can’t remember a time before I felt like I had to earn my right to eat food.

That is me, around age 2, looking as cute as can be. A kid should be encouraged to eat and listen to their fullness and satiety cues, but my parents were worried about my food consumption.

By seven or eight, my parents had me on the first of many diets because my body did not conform to their idea of health (aka thin).

In the following photo, I’m age 10, which is the same age I was when I had a nightmare that I was begging for food from my parents, and they were sadly telling me “no.” Even my psyche knew I was hungry.

I kept food logs. I counted calories. I dieted and dieted and dieted. Atkins (low carbs), low calorie, snack-free days. However, contrary to the assumption of the popular “calories in, calories out” model, which indicated I should have been getting smaller, I wasn’t. I kept growing sideways. My parents thought I was eating in hiding, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t getting smaller because my body resisted the starvation plans I was subjected to.

The comments about and disappointment with my body were relentless. By watching adults in my life, I learned that to be ‘good,’ I had to restrict my intake. If I were ‘bad’ by ‘overeating,’ I had to punish my body and earn my right to eat the next day. Food became a reward, and exercise was a manipulation to get even more of a reward.

Friends, that’s an eating disorder.

It took me until I was in my 30s to acknowledge that.

I have an eating disorder. And because I’m in a larger body, there’s no easy diagnosis for what’s going on in my brain and body. Hell, many people assume that fat people can’t possibly have an eating disorder. But we exist. We are common, even. You probably know one of us. Or are one of us.

The struggle against the ‘food and punishment’ mindset of my eating disorder is not something that goes away—even years into treatment and near remission, I still struggle to believe that I deserve to eat every day, multiple times a day. However, it does get easier, with a fabulous team of eating disorder specialists (therapists, dietitians, etc), and with friends who know what’s going on inside me.

Does any of my story resonate with you? Or maybe you know someone in your life who has suffered from forced dieting and body non-conformity. I want you to know that there is hope for you in your today body. You don’t have to be thin to have an eating disorder, and you don’t have to fight alone.

Find a weight-neutral therapist who specializes in eating disorders (yes, they exist—reach out and I’ll help you find one!) and a weight-neutral dietitian (my favorite is Mia Donley).

In addition to finding a weight-neutral eating disorder therapist and dietitian, some resources for you include:

• The Fat Dispatch is my newsletter, where I talk about my life as a fat person (with an eating disorder).

• My All Bodies Are Good Bodies Facebook group, which is a nonjudgmental place to ask questions about talking about bodies in a weight-neutral way, setting boundaries with medical providers, and more.

• My books More of You: The Fat Girl’s Field Guide to the Modern World and Lovely: How I Learned to Embrace the Body God Gave Me. Both are also available from Amazon, but I would encourage you to buy from your favorite independent bookseller through Bookshop.org or from my favorite bookstore Hearts and Minds Bookstore.

• My Instagram @your_body_is_good is where I post (when I’m able) about fat liberation and the goodness of the human body.

So as we wrap up this holiday weekend, reject the shame and guilt. Embrace the truth of your body’s goodness.

Remember:

YOU DON’T HAVE TO EARN THE RIGHT TO EAT.

YOU DESERVE TO EAT EVERY DAY.

MULTIPLES TIMES A DAY.

WHATEVER YOU WANT.

I wish you the best on your journey to healing.

~Amanda Martinez Beck

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