it's been a while since i've written about food and my relationship to it. for any long-time readers of this blog you know i struggled with a severe eating disorder for years (about six to be exact). while i consider myself almost completely healed, i would be remiss if i didn't say there are days in which i struggle greatly and moments in which the disease reenters my life in a startling fashion. though, i now wonder if this isn't so much a product of my history as the culture in which we live.
i was having a very difficult time this past fall. i went home to texas for few days and i remember my mother asking me why i had taken down the side-link on the blog that detailed my history with the eating disorder.
i don't want it to define me, i said. i'm just not sure i want or need everyone to know now.
but for better or worse it is a part of your story, she replied.
(boy how things have changed since i was just out of college and my parents were so opposed to the whole blog thing).
i've begun no less than seven or eight posts about my relationship with food now, because my mother's right. for better or worse it is a part of my story, and believe it or not it is something i am deeply grateful for. but in trying to write about it, there just seems to be so much to say, and i get overwhelmed and those posts fall to the graveyard of half-written pieces that litter my blogger dashboard.
so i'm working on it. on writing about where i am with food now. and i can see where others will look at this and think, what does an eating disorder have to do with me?
well, God willing, not much.
but food is an issue in this country. health is an issue. and it is not the purview of the wealthy and elite to worry about it. the way in which eat has changed drastically over the last fifty, sixty years. and our poor bodies just can't keep up, nor can they made heads or tales of it--we have gotten so far away from natural, biological inclinations.
so i'm gonna keep talking about it. because it is vital and nothing is more of the moment.
but until i get my act together, i implore you to take a look at these.
you see, we need to take what we think we know about food and health and turn it on its head:
the real cause of heart disease, according to a heart surgeon.
exercise changes DNA.
hello giggles does it again: a brilliant article, by a brilliant woman. this one about body image.
the reasons for obesity in this country are many, but this audio article is worth a listen. (i mean, seriously, please give it a listen).
occupying or rather, de-occupying big foods. now this is a movement that i could get behind.
and should you want to know more about my story... (it goes backwards, so the most recent posts are the ones that will come up first).