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How My Past Eating Disorder Has Affected Me As A Mom
How do you feel about your body? How do you feel about food?
As someone who has struggled with body confidence her whole life, I've had a love-hate relationship with these 2.
***Warning: there are various descriptive, emotional triggers in the rest of this story. Please be advised**
From disordered eating, laxatives, cleanses, liquid diets, binging then throwing up, caffeine pills and patches, overexercising (I remember running non-stop around the track until welts formed in my armpits and skin peeled off my inner thighs)...to not eating for days...I've done it all.
It started when I was just a kid. I remember I went on my first 'diet' when I was barely 8 years old, eliminating meat because fat was the enemy at the time.
From the media, not meeting the stereotypical thin Asian body type, negative comments from family and family friends, pressure from myself to meet unattainable expectations, perfectionist tendencies...all of these contributed to my disordered eating behaviour.
As part of my recovery, I've pinpointed the reasons for my toxic relationship with food: I control my eating as a way to control my feelings.
However, emotions are not reasons to eat.
To be hungry is. To nourish your body is. To fuel your brain so it can optimally function while you write is. To feed your muscles so they can pick up your child is.
And that took years to figure out, to be in tune with my body, teasing out what feeling I was feeling whenever I wanted to eat.
It's a daily battle. Every meal I eat, I try my best to do it mindfully. Over time, I've come to appreciate and re-invigorate my love for food.
And I'm extra sensitive to the way I talk about food, how I eat, when I eat and what I eat whenever I'm around my children. I don't want to put an emphasis on it but I also don't want it to be off my radar. I want to teach my kids to have a healthy relationship with food without drawing too much attention to it.
I want to be stealth, monitoring closely but not too closely.
I think I'll always think, "Am I hyper-aware of how and what they eat because of my past? Or is there actually something going on?"
So here are some guidelines that I've been following and my thoughts and realistic experiences with how that's actually been going.
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By Katharine ChanHow do you feel about your body? How do you feel about food?
As someone who has struggled with body confidence her whole life, I've had a love-hate relationship with these 2.
***Warning: there are various descriptive, emotional triggers in the rest of this story. Please be advised**
From disordered eating, laxatives, cleanses, liquid diets, binging then throwing up, caffeine pills and patches, overexercising (I remember running non-stop around the track until welts formed in my armpits and skin peeled off my inner thighs)...to not eating for days...I've done it all.
It started when I was just a kid. I remember I went on my first 'diet' when I was barely 8 years old, eliminating meat because fat was the enemy at the time.
From the media, not meeting the stereotypical thin Asian body type, negative comments from family and family friends, pressure from myself to meet unattainable expectations, perfectionist tendencies...all of these contributed to my disordered eating behaviour.
As part of my recovery, I've pinpointed the reasons for my toxic relationship with food: I control my eating as a way to control my feelings.
However, emotions are not reasons to eat.
To be hungry is. To nourish your body is. To fuel your brain so it can optimally function while you write is. To feed your muscles so they can pick up your child is.
And that took years to figure out, to be in tune with my body, teasing out what feeling I was feeling whenever I wanted to eat.
It's a daily battle. Every meal I eat, I try my best to do it mindfully. Over time, I've come to appreciate and re-invigorate my love for food.
And I'm extra sensitive to the way I talk about food, how I eat, when I eat and what I eat whenever I'm around my children. I don't want to put an emphasis on it but I also don't want it to be off my radar. I want to teach my kids to have a healthy relationship with food without drawing too much attention to it.
I want to be stealth, monitoring closely but not too closely.
I think I'll always think, "Am I hyper-aware of how and what they eat because of my past? Or is there actually something going on?"
So here are some guidelines that I've been following and my thoughts and realistic experiences with how that's actually been going.