Deserving

     I was just sitting here watching Orange is the New Black when two of the characters made some comment about getting to have a cookie as a reward for doing some arbitrary task. I immediately stopped paying attention to the show and starting thinking about the whole concept of thinking we, as women can only feel comfortable eating a dessert or some other 'bad' food if we do something deserving of it. I can't think of a time when I heard a man say he felt like he had to earn his dessert, or called a cookie a reward. In our society women historically have unhealthy relationships with food and body image, and it is something ingrained in us at a young age. 

     When I was a little girl I was sometimes allowed to go to the 'girl's lunch' at Red Lobster with my mom and grandma. I would sit there feeling like a big girl, sipping on my shirley temple, devouring cheddar biscuits with popcorn shrimp, and listening to the two ladies that I idolized most in the world talk about life. I was too little to really understand what they were talking about at that age, but I can remember those phrases that I've heard many other women repeat in my lifetime. "Today is my cheat day", "i need that dressing on the side", "Can I see the low cal menu"...the list goes on and on. It was like their brain worked on autopilot when it came to ordering and eating food. Without any hesitation they would spit out their orders for the healthier foods on the menu, instinctively asking for the fat free or low cal salad dressing, diet soda, even factoring in the calories of a glass of wine, and they could keep their conversations up the whole time because years of training made it to where their brains could pick out the 'safe' foods on autopilot. Never once in all the years we went to lunch did I see my mom and grandma order a dessert, not even to split. They didn't 'deserve' that dessert, the focus was always staying thin because in our society (esp back then) you couldn't be beautiful without the word thin in your description. 

     It didn't take long before I started to understand their obsessions with their appearance, particularly their weight. I was seven when I started to realize that my body had changed, I could see the difference in dance class, the way my tummy stuck out a bit more than the other girls, and I started to feel less than. I can't say that I felt less beautiful because I was seven, beautiful was a concept that would come later, I just felt less than the other girls. My body was the minority of the group, and as much as grown ups like to think they are speaking out of the reach of young earshot, I heard the words chubby and baby fat a lot, and I knew I was different. Its not like I started dieting or anything like that, hell, I can remember food being used as a reward system again, when I was good, cleaned something, got good grades, whatever I 'deserved' to have Baskin Robbins or some other treat that wasn't healthy. Hell, it started when I was a toddler...when I used the potty, slept in my bed, didn't throw a fit at the store for a toy, etc I was handed a treat telling me that when I do something good I earn a treat. Eventually, I would have a very dangerous paradigm shift when it came to 'deserving' food. 

     I was 8 or 9 when my great grandma brought this box to a family dinner with the name, Richard Simmons in bold on the front of it. When she opened the lid it looked almost like a game, full of all these brightly colored cards. I thought it was a game until I realized that the cards had labels like breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, dessert, etc. My great grandma had brought a Richard Simmons diet plan that she had been using, and explaining it to me like it was a game, but with my food. If I earned enough points I could 'earn' extra dessert foods, and if I did a certain amount of dancing or playing outside (grownup speak for exercise) I would 'deserve' an extra snack. I got super excited about doing it, and like most kids when they are excited, the first thing I did when we got home from my grandparents was go tell my dad all about it and show him the game. He got so angry, took the box away, and told me that didn't need to worry about all that stuff at my age. Eventually, I was sent to my room while my parents argued about the situation...I never saw that box again. 

     By the time I was in junior high I had already been bullied for my weight, I knew that I wasn't beautiful because I didn't look like the other girls, the boys didn't ask me to sit with them at lunch, it was a joke to say a boy liked me, and by that age I was well aware of calories a fat, but I kept eating it. My mom battled her own issues with food an body image, she tried to help me watch my weight in her own way, accidently teaching me tricks that I would later use when I self destructed. I remember I would find myself finding  reasons that I 'deserved' to have more ice cream or pizza, and a lot of the time it was simple because they were there. When I got to my highest weight I was 180 lbs, I dreaded going shopping for clothes, wearing the clothes, I hated my body, and I hid a lot of sadness behind my smiles. Its not like I didn't have friends, I had friends at school, friends from softball out of school, but I was always the big girl of the group...I hated it. 

     Like I said, my paradigm shifted at 15 down a very dangerous road. I went on a diet, cut out the junk food, started exercising, setting myself goals to hit so I would 'deserve' to eat my salad and grilled chicken breast. All the years of watching my mom and other women in my life diet I had learned all about calories, to eat slowly so your stomach knows you're full, eating off smaller plates, diet soda, frozen grapes instead of chips, and the list goes on. At first, I was proud, my mom was proud, my dad, my grandma, and everyone else because I was living a healthy lifestyle. But, while everyone else was so proud of me I still couldn't see beautiful when I looked in the mirror, I thought my size 10 pants weren't good enough, the TV said I wasn't beautiful yet, and all those things I heard from just a little girl had done to me what they did to my mom, her mom, and her mom before that...etched in my brain how I was supposed to feel about my body, about my beauty, and how those things affected my self worth.

     I was consumed by thoughts that I would never be enough, I wanted to be the thin, pretty daughter my mom deserved. I knew she was proud of me for all the good grades I brought up and that I was a kind and caring young lady, but deep down I convinced myself that she would be happier if she had a daughter that looked like her. I believed no boy would ever see me as pretty enough to date or marry someday the way I was. My whole identity became my weight, what I ate, what I didn't, what the scale said, etc. I measured my triumphs and failures by what the scale said at the end of the day. Eventually, I convinced myself that I didn't need to eat, that I didn't deserve to eat, and anorexia took hold of me. Anorexia consumed my life, trapping the happy girl that had once been so happy to sit with her mom and grandma sipping shirley temples and eating popcorn shrimp deep down inside. I lived in a dark place where all I felt was the pain I had gone through in my life, all the things I couldn't tell anyone, that i didn't 'deserve' to tell anyone, and I lived trapped in that hell for eight years. All the docs, the countless hospitalizations, force feedings, treatment, letting down my family, my friends, my mom dying before getting to see her daughter happy and healthy, the only thing she every really wanted, the pills that almost took my life filled the years that I shouldve been enjoying high school, going to college, and starting my life. 

      Even now, coming up on 12 years of recovery I still find myself having those thoughts. Even women who haven't fallen down the rabbit hole into a severe eating disorder still struggle having a healthy relationship with food and their bodies. It is somehow wired into us at a young age that we can't just simple enjoy food, we have to earn that dessert, or if we 'slip' and eat something unhealthy we must force ourselves to spend extra time torturing ourselves in the gym to stop it from altering our bodies. It's crazy that we think one dessert is going to suddenly cause us to burst through our belts, unable to wear our clothes. Why do we struggle so much to trust that we can eat a piece of cake and our body will be fine with that? Don't get me wrong, we've made progress in being more body positive, accepting that all sizes are beautiful. But, deep down we still feel the pull of that hard wiring, we are quite enough the way we are. I pray for a day that all of us can stop seeing calories as the enemy, to trust that if we do things in moderation our bodies will know how to handle it, and if we do have a day that we have that extra piece of cake we can trust that our bodies will not revolt against us. I believe in my heat that we can get there someday. The first step in that process is to teach our children to love their bodies, to understand that calories are energy, that we can have a healthy diet that allows for cookies in moderation, we teach them that exercise is not a punishment for overeating, but a way to feel good. Most of all, we teach our kids that every body is beautiful, we don't judge people about their size, and we change our vocabulary at home by not commenting on people's wt, understanding that the word 'fat' can cut deeper than a knife when spoken to some. Most of all, we teach them that food isn't something that they have to earn, it is fuel for our bodies that we can enjoy. I believe we can change this paradigm one step at a time. I encourage you to eat that cookie you're craving, don't think about how many extra minutes of cardio you will need to do at the gym, worry about that cookie 'going straight to your thighs', just eat the damn cookie and enjoy it because you wanted it.