“Feed Me” Edited by Harriet Brown
The first diet/ excercise regimen I put myself on was when I was seven. I was convinced that I was fat and that in order to get the attention of anyone I would have to lose weight. Looking back, or more precisely looking at pictures of me at that age, I cannot imagine where my bad body image came from. I was neither fat nor skinny. I was perfect. I was healthy. I was cute. And yet I hated my body.
Around the time I began dieting I also began sneaking food, as in when no-one else was around I would indulge in spoonfuls of peanut butter dipped in sugar, frosting straight out of the can (still a favorite of mine), or entire boxes of my mother’s Weight Watchers chocolate cake.
A story my father loves to tell (which I don’t mind saying is getting pretty damned old) is of the time when, in my early teens, I went to Maine to stay with him over winter break. One day he took his skidoo out for a ride and while he was gone I ate an entire box of Queen Anne’s chocolate covered cherries, the cheap kind with the white gooey stuff at the bottom. Yummmy. Anyway, every time my dad tells the story he ends with “I don’t know why you thought you had to hide that from me.” Neither do I. But somewhere along the way I learned that thinness equated to being loveable and eating sweets in front of people meant I was weak of mind and spirit. And for most of my adolescent and adult life I was stuck with those ideals.
In my teens ( a very traumatic time in my life) I went from fat,to chubby, to average sized. In my twenties I went from thin to scary skinny. At five six and 118 pounds wearing a size two, I still thought my thighs were enormous so I exercised and dieted and berated myself every time I looked in the mirror thinking (apparently) that self-deprecation would get me down a few more pounds, a few more sizes. . . . Despite that I looked like a bobble head doll, I did not think I was thin enough. I remember going into the Gap and trying on a skin-tight black dress and asking the sales woman if it made me look fat? After she stopped glaring at me she said, “no,” in a tone that intimated if I asked again she was going to take me out back and pummel my scrawny ass. I was on the verge of anorexia and prayed that the compulsion to eat would leave me. Fortunately it did not, despite my best efforts.
In my thirties I have been a size twelve, a size four, a size eight (where I happily reside now) and every size in between. I recently decided that I was sick of dieting, sick of comparing myself to others just so I could tell myself I wasn’t thin enough (i.e. good enough). I literally threw my hands in the air and said, “that’s it. I’m done. No more dieting. No more weighing myself, no more berating myself. I like who I am, and I’m not losing one more god-damned pound.”
Shortly after this not-quite-mid-life epiphany I came across the book Feed Me in the “Women’s Studies” section at Barnes and Noble. As it turns out I am not the only woman in the world who started dieting at an obscenely early age, nor am I the only woman who eats frosting out of the can, or has traded in dieting for self-love/ care.
The first story I opened up to was entitled “In the House of Jean Nidetch” by Whitney Otto. Oh, how I could relate. The first time I joined WW, I was in my early teens, and the youngest person in the room. In fact I was the only person under the age of twenty and I thought that there was something seriously wrong with me because I was fat. My best friend at the time was über thin. She had an overactive thyroid and could eat anything she wanted without gaining so much as an ounce (bitch!) . Her mother once said that she was proud of me because out of all of her daughters fat friends I was the only one trying to lose weight. I’m sure she meant it as a compliment, but for someone who thought that fat equated to unloveable I did not take it as such.
Otto’s story is only one of many that I found myself either laughing, crying, cringing, or nodding my head to and thinking “yup, been there done that.” Between the covers of my new favorite non-fiction book of all time are twenty-three stories written (by women) in memoir form and covering all issues concerning food and body. It is a book that all women can identify with on some level because, let’s face it, the world has gone crazy with the obsession to be thin, to be perfect, to look like one of the many bobble headed women that stare out at us from every magazine cover at the checkout counter or strut across the big screen making thin (or super skinny) look easy and natural. For most of us (because only about 7% of the population is born with a modelesque physique) it is not.
As for the writing; it is fabulous, heartfelt, funny, and most importantly honest. I implore you, if you have ever struggled with dieting, bad body image, or a boyfriend who kindly suggests you skip desert then do yourself a favor and read this book.
For a sneak peek into what I hope is the first of many books done in this style you can visit 8384013-Feed-Me-Edited-by-Harriet-Brown-3-Stories and, assuming that I did this right, you can read the intro by Harriet Brown, and the first three stories in the book.
Enjoy.
