Starting New

I'm starting this blog because I care so much about this topic. Eating Disorders is a name for a variety of unhealthy relationships to food. Food sustains us, is celebratory, invokes feelings of excitement, warmth, and nostalgia. On the flip side eating and food itself can be part of unhealthy obsessions. People with eating disorders eat too much or too little, they create rituals surrounding their food intake. They use it to punish or congratulate themselves. They think about food all of the time.

I also have a passion for helping victims of abuse. And with that I firmly believe that eating disorders stem from cultural abuse. The internet is full of sites promoting anorexia, in my mind the Ana trend has gone too far. Television gives women and some men the idea that there is a perfect body type for the star, the leading role, the "good" one.

So I started posting quotes that popped into my head on Instagram. The quotes started becoming longer and not really quotes but paragraphs. That's when I knew I needed to start a blog.

I'll tell my story here over the next few posts on how I am working to heal my relationship with food.
Note I said "working" on it because this is such a profound issue for me that I am uncovering layer upon layer of problems I have with my weight, food obsessions, and how much I love myself.

Because it really boils down to this: in order to have a healthy relationship with anyone or anything, you have to love yourself first. We are taught in our society and through our families that we are not worthy of love. This happens especially to women. But some men experience self aggrandizement  too. They feel that to be lovable they must diet to look like a certain type of person. The good news is is that only 5 % of all women are able to achieve that perfect look naturally. They were born that way. The bad news? Nobody seems to know this.
So you can read my quotes on my Instagram #WhatItsFor or you can wait until I create a section where I will post them to this blog.
In the meantime I really want to hear your stories, I want to hear what you have to say about your relationship to food. Together in numbers we can chip away at this terrible block that holds so many of us back from who we really are. We are not one type. We are like beautiful snowflakes, no two alike. So please post here and help all of us share in the dream to heal ourselves and our relationship to self love and food.