“You are so skinny’
‘You’re so healthy’
‘You’re so fit’
‘You are so dedicated to working out’
‘You are always so disciplined and eat healthy.’
‘I wish I had your body.’
‘I wish I could look like you.’
Smile awkwardly. Say thank you sheepishly. Nod, hoping they’ll stop now.
They always ask ‘what do you do? What kind of workouts do you do and what do you eat regularly?’
They love it when I tell them I do HIIT, yoga, spin class and run.
They eat it up when I talk about lean protein, healthy fats, fresh vegetables & eliminating processed foods & refined sugar.
It looks fine on outside, but from the girl who has been on both sides, healthy and unhealthy, it’s an ever so fine line.
That fine line is one I’ve walked; that line of being physically fit and eating healthy that could cross over into disordered eating with the slightest misstep.
Teetering between sickness and health. Sickness of the mind & a body that is deprived and a healthy mindset with a body that is fueled.
They very thing that we as a society have criticized we’ve also condoned.
As a culture we’ve shaken out heads disapprovingly at rail thin models and an industry that supports that image.
As a society we denounce extreme diets, weight loss methods & intense fitness regimens
But there’s a niche of eating disorders that we condone.
A bit of disordered eating that we praise, a lifestyle that we find socially acceptable
The rationalization that as long as she’s a ‘normal size’ she doesn’t have an eating disorder.
The idea that disordered eating is binging, purging & restricting doesn’t take into consideration the dark side of counting macros or intermittent fasting.
We’re quick to praise someone for their weight loss or self control & slow to realize that we may
be condoning the very thing that is making them sicker both physically & mentally.
So we must ask rather than assume.
Seek out instead of standing by & singing praises.
With the knowledge of the truth, that healthy is not one shape & size just as sickness is not one shape and size.