How my journey for health ultimately lead me to be on the less romanticized side of an eating disorder
I am an almost 30-year-old woman with a doctorate in healthcare and my new dietitian just had to remind me that the consumption of food is necessary to survive. And you might be thinking, DUH. But when I tell you that I honestly have forgotten that my body actually needs food, it is because the providers in charge of my health failed me. I have been conditioned over time to think that food is not a necessity but rather the enemy and a source of medicine at the same time.
Let me explain this a little further. I have long suffered from chronic pain due to an injury that occurred when I was four years old. It wasn’t my fault, I got an infection and it had nothing to do with my weight. I had to have surgery and after my recovery was finished they sent me along my way. Due to lack of good follow-up care, my symptoms precipitated over time to the point where doctors have jokingly said to my face that I have the joints of a 90-year-old. Funny, right? I was fourteen years old being told I needed a hip replacement but that no doctor would give me one because I was too young. Despite being much older now, I still face barriers that prevent me from finding quality care in my journey for pain relief.
Now add in Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, otherwise known as PCOS. A hormonal disease that is known to cause irregular menstrual cycles, fatigue, obesity, insulin resistance, irregular hair growth, and trouble with fertility just to name a few. I can tell you that I do not wish this condition on my worst enemy. If you think you have trouble dealing with the women in your life after a 5–7 day period, come talk to me when I am on day 62 of bleeding. As awful as all that sounds, I was so relieved to have my symptoms explained. Even after being hospitalized after I had cysts on my ovaries rupture and was told that it was just a part of my new reality, there was something comforting about having a diagnosis.
When I found out that I had a disease that more than likely causes weight gain, I figured that providers out there would be able to give me the tools I needed to prevent and maintain a healthy weight. Surely the system was set up to help me succeed to prevent the documented symptoms of my disease considering we feel so strongly about obesity in the health community. Because if someone has cancer, you treat the Cancer. You don’t blame them for having fatigue or nausea. But, as the title of this article suggests, I was very wrong.
Weight gain. It happens to the best of us because our bodies ebb and flow over our life spans. We have all experienced the diet culture, skinny tea ads from celebrities, and the lack of inclusive body types in our media. I once had a Nutritionist describe PCOS and weight gain as “It’s not fair but some women with PCOS could probably gain weight just being near someone else eating a cookie.” Now that might be a bit of an exaggeration but science has proven that weight loss is typically X times harder for those suffering from PCOS and obesity. I have sought help from all sorts of providers over the years. Doctors, NPs, dietitians, nutritionists, fitness coaches, weight loss specialists, and more. They have all told me the same thing just in a different package.
You need to lose weight: eat no carbs, eat no dairy, eat whole wheat carbs, eat full-fat dairy, don’t even look at sugar, cut out artificial sugar, don’t do the movement that hurts, do high-intensity movement, and the list goes on and on. None of them were necessarily wrong or right but not one of them could look beyond my weight to treat the issues that were impacting my day-to-day. It didn’t matter that my issues predated my weight gain. I was just a number on a scale, their fatphobia driving their prescriptions. They were not thinking about the harm they were doing. I followed each and every one of those diets. I would restrict all of the “bad” foods they told me I had to cut out for the rest of my life until it inevitably became unsustainable and then in moments of frustration, I would binge. I began obsessing over each gram of food I put into my body. I would rsvp’d no to social events that required me to be around food or I would end up going to events solely for the excuse to cheat on my diet.
When those diets didn’t work for me, I was shamed. No one went back to the drawing board to come up with other solutions. It was my fault that I couldn’t get to a healthy weight. I just needed to be stricter with my diet, exercise more, and I don’t know, do a rain dance or something. So it’s no wonder that on my road to reaching health and pain resolution, I now find myself staring straight at a new diagnosis that I didn’t have before seeking help. Eating disorders and I am paraphrasing here, usually stem from focusing too much on body weight, shape, and food which can lead to your body’s inability to get proper nutrition. Restrictive fad diets, even when prescribed by a doctor, can lead to disordered eating.
I am by no means not saying that weight loss or nutritional guidance is a bad thing in all instances. But when we forgo doing the extra work to see beyond the weight, we erase the validity of suffering for those who live in “abnormal” bodies by today’s standards. We are saying to people like me, that your pain/symptoms are not worthy of treatment because your BMI is too high. And I am saying we because I work in the very healthcare system that has failed me. I take ownership of my part to do better, to speak up louder, and to not let it continue to use stigma in replacement of quality care.
The healthcare system and society programs our minds to think of food as good and bad. Especially as women, we are taught early and often that the space our body takes up is more important than the multitude of skills we bring to the table. We see this data over and over again. Studies have shown that there is a perception that an obese person is less likely to have leadership qualities and is expected to be less successful than their “normal” weight peers. Anecdotally, that a fat person seen eating a slice of pizza must be fat because of their eating habits while a skinny person eating a whole pizza is being quirky. We are told a “fat” person is unhealthy and losing weight is something to celebrate regardless of how toxic the methods they use to do so. We cry over pictures of women and men with anorexia and praise those who are overweight and are on the road to weight loss. That the impact on your physical and mental health does not matter as long as you fit into a straight size.
Sixteen years into my journey and I am still in pain and quite frankly, am still fat. I have had to seek therapy for both my mental and physical health. I now have to re-learn how to see food in a healthy way. I have to scroll past the before and after photos and remind myself that making peace with my body and food is what health looks like for me. Unlearning the shame that I’ve been force-fed to realize that it doesn’t make me a bad person to crave chocolate every now and again. I am allowed to be frustrated that I am turned away for medical procedures without getting to know me as a person because of 3 little numbers on my chart. That it is okay to seek what health means for me, right now, regardless of what size pants I wear. I am adjusting to the idea that clothes are meant to fit my body and not the other way around.
My pain is valid and I deserve to receive care the same way as someone who is at a normal weight. I have to remind myself that my weight is a symptom of a disease and not something caused just because I happen to like potatoes. I have to learn to trust my own body again. I have to push back when society tells me that all healthcare workers should look a certain way and that my work is still meaningful despite my extra pounds. I have a lot to re-learn and they don’t call it recovery for nothing.
I am writing this article because I know that my experiences are not mine alone. There are plenty of people out there facing the same battles every day. I want those of you struggling to know you are not alone. That is not your fault that our society can’t seem to understand creating what health can look like at each and every size. I am still on my journey to recovery but I have hope that the more we speak out, the more we can change the system. If you are a healthcare provider reading this and are not already doing so, I hope you feel urged to look beyond weight and see that we are all just humans doing our best in this thing called life.
