Libby Supan grew up considering the letters f, a, and t to be the building blocks of one very bad word. A lot of us felt that way though, didn’t we? During my childhood, everyone was looking for ways to lose weight with aerobics and fat-free diets. In Libby’s memories, it was her mom who was always on a diet. She learned that gaining weight equals bad, losing weight equals good, and how you did it didn’t really matter. For her, that was a lesson that eventually evolved into an eating disorder. 

Things were going well for Libby in junior high. She was on cheer and in dance, she was smart, and she was popular. That’s about the best most tweens and teens can hope for. All was swell in Libby’s life, but then her parents had to up and move to another community, and Libby had to start over at a new school. It didn’t go so well. She went from popular to unknown, from being the best or near best at everything to being smart and talented, but not the smartest or most talented.

Remember the lesson she learned earlier – gaining weight equals bad and losing weight equals good? Well that lesson was about to come in handy. She’d lost some control in her life, so she could regain it by losing weight. She couldn't do better than straight A's, but she could always lose another pound by restricting her diet in unhealthy ways.

Libby struggled with disordered eating for many years, but she’s doing great today. She’s a therapist, a certified intuitive eating coach, and a Decent Fucking Human. 

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