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A drawing I did of how I wanted my body to be.

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In May 2022, my life was not going well in any aspect. I really have no recollection of when my life started to fall apart at that time, since in my memories there is no event that marked a before and after. But the reality was that: I felt that I was not enough for anything, or anyone.

I compared myself intellectually and physically with anyone around me, thinking that everyone close to me deserved someone better by their side or that they were even ashamed to be with me. At that time I believed that everyone deserved to be loved but me.

From all these thoughts, I began to believe that people would love me more or I would finally have a love interest if I lost weight. In my mind the phrases began to play repetitively:

“Pretty people only like thin people.”

“If I were 10 pounds lighter, maybe these things wouldn't be happening to me.”

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By June of that same year, because of these thoughts, my relationship with food was not the best.

I remember that junk food began to make me feel disgusted and anxious. Anxious to the point that thinking about the calories that each french fry, each bite of hamburger or each slice of pizza might have made me want to vomit.

Every time my friends or family invited me to eat something related to these foods and I ingested them, I would come home crying and scrubbing my body because I felt dirty.

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I started counting the calories of each meal, I needed to know how many calories were in a tomato, a piece of lettuce, a small piece of meat or a warm egg. For this, I even downloaded two applications that counted the calories of each meal of the day or of everything I could order online.

Apps names: "Seguidor de ayuno." "Foodvisor."

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By this time, I set a goal and that was to lose at least 10 kilos. I started cooking my meals and eating everything at home, and the purchases I made for the month of July were only vegetables and fruits.

I remember that I loved to buy strawberries, watermelons and tomatoes as they were the only fruits I could eat and feel full quickly in the day.

But this was not enough for me.

Intermittent fasting and weigh myself on machines started to be part of my week, there were days where I didn't eat anything and what I did to satisfy my hunger was to chew ice, chew gum and drink large amounts of water to feel like I was fulfilling my mint.

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Hard-boiled eggs had no oil and were not as high in calories compared to other.

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Hard-boiled eggs had no oil and were not as high in calories compared to other.

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However, my family and friends began to suspect that something was wrong. With my family, I wouldn't sit down to eat with them; making the excuse that I had too much homework or just didn't have an appetite. And with my friends at work, I denied every outing that included eating something.

They started calling me boring or that I didn't like any plan enough.

Mentally and physically it started to take a toll on me. I felt tired all the time, I felt like sleeping even when I had slept all day and on top of that, I couldn't go to the bathroom like a normal person. There were weeks where I would only go into the bathroom to urinate.

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I want to believe that it is thanks to fate that my mom realized it at the right time. After several weeks of denial following this event, I started going to a therapist for January 2023.

Although I no longer feel so much guilt about eating and my weight is healthy for my height at the moment, I still continue to have self-destructive thoughts and take medication to satiate the anxiety that comes from eating more than I planned.

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Markets my mom used to make to take care of my anxiety.

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Markets my mom used to make to take care of my anxiety.

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By December of the same year, what is obvious to many happened: I collapsed in the middle of a family meeting. I remember we were all having a good time, but I started to feel tired and the lights just went out for me.

At the hospital they told my mom that my body wasn't getting enough nutrients and that, coupled with the stress, my body just stopped responding.

As a result, my mom began to be more aware of my health, noticing what was going on in all aspects of my life. She noticed how I didn't eat breakfast, how I locked myself in my room to weigh myself and how I refused any junk food or dessert that was offered to me.

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Eating disorders appear at any time and stage of life, in fact, they are more common than we think and we are surrounded by people who suffer from them. They do not appear as a simple result of wanting to look thinner, prettier or simply out of vanity.

They appear as a result of a distorted body image, where many people believe that their bodies are not normal or they are never satisfied with themselves when they look in the mirror. They begin when some people want control of something in life because in their desperation they believe that food is the only thing where they can find control of something. Bullying, genetics, etc.

They are also a call to question the vision of life and culture of beauty that we have today.

We live in a world of consumerism and eagerness, where eating in a balanced and healthy way is not the focus of attention, beauty is the most important thing.

We subsist in a culture of misogyny, where women are constantly forced to eat small amounts to be pretty, while a man is forced to eat large amounts to show his manhood.

And finally, there is a culture of fatphobia. Where fat people are constantly questioned about why they are fat, where the standard of beauty will never be a fat woman or a fat man.