So here we are, caught in the middle of a skinny epidemic. Everyone wants to be skinny, but not just thin - everyone wants to be tiny. I don't hear anyone saying that they want to be a skinny size 14. Even the people who are already thin want to lose weight. It makes us wonder if, rather than a skinny epidemic, it might actually be a spreading and highly contagious case of ill mental health?
The whole size zero thing is getting drastically out of hand. It's actually almost fashionable to have an eating disorder. All we seem to see in the latest magazines are pictures of the thinnest and most unwell stars, close to deaths door just to look good. Then later in the same magazine we see pictures of the other stars who have put on a few pounds in the most un-glamorous positions possible. The media bombards us with skinny propaganda, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The negative aspects of extreme dieting and eating disorders are conveniently cloaked with how beautiful the next woman who lost 4 stone is, how it changed her life and got her a proposal from a red hot millionaire footballer. Puh-lease. We all know deep down that this stuff is a load of old rubbish - so why do we buy into it? Beats me - and I've been there myself, for a wasted 5 years of my life, which I'll go into later.
You have to admit, it's a hell of a lot harder in today's world to eat healthily than it probably was years ago. Recently I was discussing healthy eating with my Gran, and the warnings that too many eggs are bad for you due to high cholesterol. 'Never did me any harm,' was her direct quote… sounds familiar I'm sure to Grandchildren everywhere. She said that when she was growing up everyone ate eggs every morning, and that my Grandpa was fed a full English breakfast every morning in life, with sandwiches or broth for lunch and always meat, veg and potatoes for dinner followed by a pudding! 'And I'll tell you what else,' she said, "there wasn"t one fat person in my class at school!' I understand that there weren't the same fast food or takeaway options back then, or even sweets and crisps. Also I would imagine that back then, almost everyone ate in that manner because mother's generally stayed home and cooked for the family, and they would all eat together at the same time. That idea for me is a far cry from everyday life. My mum, dad and myself work full time jobs. I have two younger brothers and a little sister. I can only imagine that when my mum gets home late at night the last thing she wants to do is cook a big meal, so we do eat a lot of quick ready-made meals. The only time that we eat meat, veg and potatoes would be a Sunday evening. Even then, everyone has their own busy agenda, so we don't often eat together as a family.
For me, I feel my weight gain at 16 was due to fast food, which everyone was eating because none of us had much money and it was cheaper to go to McDonald's than buy a sandwich and drink. Plus we had just moved house and had to be driven to and from school (which cut out the school walk) and our parents got home late at night which meant we generally got takeaways or fast food for convenience. I knew I had gained a bit of weight, but I felt okay about it - and I knew that this was probably the transition from girl to woman and everyone knows a teen girl's weight fluctuates. It wasn't really until my family made a few comments that I started to feel unhappy.
My mum encouraged me to start a diet and if I was going out and asked how I looked
I tended to get, "okay," instead of, "nice". That was enough. My parents always told the truth - even my granddad passed comment, so I started analysing my body. I reasoned that if they were willing to say things so hurtful to me there must be cause for concern. The more I looked at my body the more I disliked it. I had never noticed how much was actually wrong with it. With Mum's help I started Rosemary Conley's flat stomach plan, which my Mum had had great success with before. It was hard at first but with my prom as an incentive I worked away at my diet plan. I can remember the comment that changed it all though - my high school prom. At the very end of the evening I got out of a car and the guy I had a crush on said, "wow, you"ve put on a bit of weight.' It made me realise instead of looking beautiful that night, I must have looked fat. And it shattered me. I can honestly recite every single comment that was ever made about my weight since then. It upsets me to remember them.
~A