World Eating Disorder Actions Day: Overcoming Our Biases
My eating disorder as a teenager is due to a multitude of reasons. Etched in my memory are comments I received from a few friends about my weight. For a long time, I believed those were the only reasons that have led me to associate negative feelings with eating. But as I have reflected over the past few years, I realize that it's a complex issue at hand.
Today, I think of it like an iceberg. The part of the iceberg visible from above the water is the reason mentioned above. But the part of the iceberg that's hidden under the water is where the other reasons interact. They contribute to the already existing problem at hand. If I could simplify those reasons in a sentence, it would be:
Society has decided to perceive different body shapes and sizes and deem one acceptable and pretty, and reject every other body shape and size.
From a young age, kids observe different instances both in real life and in all types of media in which society rejects bigger bodies:
They grow up watching their chubby classmates getting bullied mercilessly, and teachers sometimes contributing to it.
They hear snide comments made when an overweight family member or friend dares to take an extra dinner serving.
They hear close relatives and friends make jokes about that one fat friend which they claim to be light-hearted.
They see the fat character in cartoons portrayed as ugly, lonely, and undesirable.
They watch movies to find only the skinny characters have a happy ending, while the fat ones merely serve as laughing stocks whose entire identity revolves around their weight.
They see people getting lauded for losing weight and reprimanded for weight gain.
They see celebrities and people around them encouraging diet culture, restricting food, and starving themselves just to be thin.
When these kids grow up and gain weight— something utterly natural in adolescents — they are pre-conditioned to believe that their weight gain is wrong. They start feeling that not being exceptionally skinny is a fault of their own and somehow down values their self-worth. They start believing that they have to make an effort to lose weight to be pretty.
From a very young age, we subconsciously start believing that calling someone fat is an insult but calling someone thin is a compliment. When in reality, both words describe someone's body shapes. They are descriptive words like 'short' and 'tall'.
But because of how fatphobic society tends to be, we bear a negative connotation of the word fat. We grow up to be biased in our mind: thin and fat equal pretty and ugly, respectively.
This perpetuated stereotype affects everything: self-worth, self-esteem, mental health, and even physical health at times, and teenagers develop a negative body image and possibly even an eating disorder.
In India, 25% of teenage girls struggle with an eating disorder. To truly get to the root cause of eating disorders and reduce this percentage, we must eradicate this idea.
We have to understand that all fat people are not unhealthy and all thin people are healthy is wrong in every sense of the phrase. And that food intake and activities aren't the only parameters that determine someone's weight. Many more factors decide someone's diet other than just being lazy and not taking care of oneself. Certain health conditions and hormonal issues are under no one else's control but play a huge role in regulating someone's weight. The environment and the affordability of a specific type of diet also play a role in a person's weight. Being an overweight individual is painted as someone's personal choice when it is not. And even if it is someone's choice to look a certain way, who are we to judge them? Someone else's weight is not our business, and virtue signaling others in private matters that we don’t fully have an insight into is detrimental to the other person’s mental health.
Today is World Eating Disorder Actions Day. A day that aims to expand global awareness of eating disorders as genetically linked, treatable illnesses that can affect anyone. But how can we spread awareness about an illness which we unconsciously promote in so many different ways?
The first step of action to become more aware of eating disorders is to take time to reflect on how we've unconsciously helped promote this toxic culture and unlearn our biases. Only then can we move forward and fully raise awareness about eating disorders.