Eating Habits

I've blogged about this sort of thing before, but I've been thinking about it all day. I am really sick of people telling me that I'm anorexic, so I'd like to clear the air.

Here's what's up:
I am tiny in every direction. I am short, I am skinny, and I have itsy-bitsy hands and feet. It's become a point of pride for me because I know that there is nothing that I can do to change my height or the size of my hands and feet, so I'd rather enjoy my tiny stature than feel insecure about it. My proudest tiny feature is my tiny weight, which fluctuates around 85 lbs, or about 6 stone for you Brits. I like my weight because the number itself tends to evoke a shocked reaction from people (which I get also from the size of my hands and feet) and I find it funny. I like being naturally tiny because of how people react to it.

It should be noted for the record:
My weight is proportionate to my height. While technically having an underweight BMI of 16.7, I feel healthy and energetic. Not a single medical doctor has said anything to me about needing to gain weight or change my eating in order to be healthy. I am not, nor have I ever been diagnosed with anorexia or any other eating disorder.

However, it should also be noted:
I do not have a stellar body image due to my body constantly being scrutinized while I did ballet. Part of being a serious dancer (or any other kind of athlete) is having complete body-awareness all of the time. I was conditioned to count calories, weigh myself daily, and to notice minute imperfections from a very young age, and that is something that has stayed with me. These habits are unconscious most of the time; it's something that I can't help doing. The fact that I am very conscious of my weight does not mean that I am consciously doing anything to change it in either direction.

These are my eating habits:
I generally eat one or two meals a day, not because I feel the need to consciously restrict myself, but because my busy schedule of school, rehearsal, and work restricts me. However, when I do eat, I eat whole meals, generally totaling around 1000 calories each. I know it's not ideal, but it's what I can manage right now, and my weight has stayed on a plateau. If one were to add up the amount of calories that I expend over the course of the day versus the amount of calories that I take in (which I did once during health class in ninth grade), one would see that, with the combination of my small body mass and low amount of daily strenuous physical activity, my body only requires 1100 calories a day to function and maintain the same weight.

Also, though my tiny tummy does have a larger internal capacity than most people expect, sometimes, that capacity is not available to be utilized. In other words, sometimes, I am just not hungry.

Here is what makes me angry:
Whenever someone alludes to my having an eating disorder, whether it be casually or seriously. A friend telling me to "eat more" or "put some meat on my bones". Overhearing the people around me making comments about me being "scary skinny" or "totally anorexic" for one reason or another. When people are genuinely surprised that I can put away a bacon cheeseburger in a matter of minutes and then want more, and then joke about not letting me go into the bathroom after a meal so that I can't throw up.

Excuse me?
I do not (nor will I ever) binge/purge. I think that buying and consuming food for the sole sake of puking it up is wasteful of both time and money and is absolutely disgusting. I do not starve myself. The fact that I sometime eat only one meal a day is due to a lack of time, not a lack of self-worth. While I have had a bit of a masochistic streak in years past (been dealt with, by the way), it has never taken any dietary form. My constant self-measurement is habitual and for the sake of knowing, not for the sake of changing.

When I danced, I knew many girls with legitimate, diagnosed eating disorders. As a point of clarification, it's not a real disorder unless it has been medically diagnosed. Skipping a few meals because you feel fat does not make you anorexic, it makes you stupid. Same deal with eating too much and then wanting to throw it up just to get the food out; it's not bulimia unless you do it compulsively for an extended amount of time.

I have seen eating disorders nearly take a few dear friends from me. An actual eating disorder is not about behavior alone, it's about the unconscious drives for perceived needs that manifest themselves in weird and unhealthy eating habits. When starvation is compulsive, every bite is an internal battle, bones are an achievement, numbers are never low enough, the ultimate goal is not to be pretty, but to be dead, food is always on one's mind, and there is a never-ending dialogue of self-hatred inside one's head, that is anorexia. It's seriously fucked up and can ruin lives; I've witnessed this.

I won't get into my feelings of disgust towards the fact the eating disorders, like every other serious issue, have been brought into the realm of comedy and complacency by pop culture. I find it sad that people will joke about eating disorders, along with rape and suicide, but I know that I can sometimes be a culprit, so the whole situation is fucked up in all directions and I shall say no more on that particular matter.

I will be the first to admit that I am not the paragon of healthy eating. Ideally, I should be eating more meals per day so that I can distribute my calorie intake more equally over the course of a day. I should also be eating healthier foods during my few opportunities for meals instead of the starchy crap that is most conveniently available. I know that this is unhealthy, but I don't feel unhealthy all the time. I am functional, comfortably fit, and live life normally.

I'm frustrated. I don't like it when people assume that I am skinny because I force myself to be. When people call me anorexic, it doesn't hurt, it just gets under my skin. I could so easily be anorexic. All of the ingredients are there, not to mention the fact that I already exhibit some anorectic tendencies. Every day, I walk a thin line between habit and compulsion when it comes to food, but I have the strength and strong enough sense of self to know better than to let myself fall.

What really annoys me is the motivation behind the insults. Like, when a big girl calls me anorexic because she wants to feel better about herself. It's not like there's a double standard here. I don't deliberately look skinny and she doesn't deliberately look fat. Insulting my weight to justify her own is not okay. You don't see me telling large people directly their faces that they are morbidly obese, or joking about how they don't really need that extra order of fries, or not letting them do something "for their own good". What makes it okay for anyone to say or do those things to me?

I will not apologize for taking pride in wearing size 00 jeans. I like that I am small in every way. Especially in the land of obesity that is this great country (that was a double entendre, in case you missed it), I will not be made to feel bad about having a weight that is on the opposite side of the spectrum from the majority of the populace.

I tend not to give a fuck about what people think about me, but when those opinions become mistreatment, that's when I get angry. What do these people expect? That they're going to call me bulimic and that I'm going to break and tell them it's true? Shouldn't the fact that I have a tight body merit compliments instead of contempt?

Gah. I am sick of being called sick.



Julia