Eating Disorders

It just came to my attention that this week was actually Eating Disorder Awareness Week. This is a subject that is near and dear to my heart, not only do I have an eating disorder, but my daughters are at risk for having them. Let's have a selfish moment first where I talk about myself and my eating disorder, we have to go back in time a little bit when I was about 16 and was in the hospital for a disease called "gastroparesis" which is a fancy way of saying that your stomach is partially paralyzed. Sounds fun doesn't it? Yea, you're pretty much right not being able to eat much and keeping track of my weight was super fun, until I realized I was keeping track of my weight a little too much. My "magic number" was 100 pounds, it was the number I needed to reach to keep doctors off my back and a feeding tube out of my nose. It was the number that made sure everyone knew I was healthy, but it was also the number I feared the most. I was terrified of being 100 pounds, it was three digits, it was considered heavy in my mind. If I saw the scale go to 101 I would force myself to vomit. I would starve myself, go for a run, I would do ANYTHING to make that number go down. Now don't get me wrong, 101 isn't anywhere near heavy, it's perfectly healthy and I realize that now but if I were to step onto the scale and see 101 it wouldn't be pretty. It wasn't until last year I realized how it effects my daughters. My then three year old, Brooke was standing near me while I was getting ready and she put on her pants and said she was fat. Yea. My daughter said she was fat when she was three years old. That right there made me realize that I had to do something to show my daughter that she wasn't fat and she was beautiful. Since then we have banned the word "fat" from our vocabulary and she is allowed to yell at me if I call myself fat. I started calling her beautiful everyday, something that I was told not to do because it puts too much pressure on looks, but I realized that by not calling her beautiful I was doing more damage than good. So far, over a year later she hasn't called herself fat and seems pretty confident with her body. Callie on the other hand, is the one I'm really worried about developing an eating disorder, she has this image of what a perfect girl looks like-think Lucy Hale mixed with Rowan Blanchard with a little sprinkle of Jazz Jennings. We've been warned by her therapist that she may develop an eating disorder if we aren't careful because of the amount of time she spends thinking about how she looks. We were actually watching Ellen when she was talking about the "plus sized" model and Callie asked me what that meant, I explained that it meant that the model wasn't the size they normally use and was a little bit larger. Callie looked at the model and then informed me that she didn't see what was wrong with being that size-yayy! Then she added"but if she's fat I am too." I told her "fat" wasn't a good word and that she wasn't fat at all, she didn't say much for a little bit and then said it again. I realized at that moment that how our society views women and is allowed to label them as "plus sized" has a huge effect on our children, that's something I'm not ok with. A four year old shouldn't be afraid of being fat, no one should. We shouldn't be allowed to label someone we weren't made to pass judgment we were made to be kind to each other, so to everyone sharing how proud they are of the plus sized model I'm going to be honest, I'm not proud of the plus sized model. I'm proud of the model. The women. She's not plus sized, fat, skinny, anything. She is a women just like me and just like my girls will be one day.