Amidst the current size zero madness, we explore the complicated relationship between women and their body image. One girl shares her obsession with being thin…
I can pinpoint exactly when my conscious obsession with food and, more importantly, its effect on my weight, began. It was during the school holidays, I was 15 and I came across photos of myself in a bikini taken on a recent family holiday in Turkey. I couldn’t believe that frumpy, lumpy oik was what I had become. The image disgusted me and I vowed to do something about it. Now, I should make clear that I wasn’t remotely fat, but I had been a very skinny kid and enjoyed being so. Then puberty hit and some vague curves came along (sadly, only in the hip-bottom-thigh area) and suddenly I couldn’t get away with eating what had become my daily diet of wheat crunchies, fruit pastilles and chocolate crispy cake, without putting on a few pounds, which I had unknowingly done over the previous couple of years. Jeans were no longer my friend and I was hiding my shapeless self in grungy Green Day T-shirts and cargo pants.
To add insult to injury, my best friend happened to be naturally gloriously slender and I desperately wanted to emulate her leggy cords and vest-top style. So, over the next few months I somehow managed to whittle down my calorific intake until I was eating little more than a few mouthfuls of porridge for breakfast, a bread-roll and two apples for lunch and the smallest plateful of dinner I could get away with. Whenever possible I would tell my parents I was eating out or at a friend’s and skip dinner altogether. On top of this, I would exercise compulsively every evening – sit ups, star jumps, lunges… anything to burn off what I had just eaten. In the midst of all this, I was studying furiously for my GCSEs and by the time the exams came round I was a nervous wreck. Hunger kept me awake at night and my bones were protruding so much I couldn’t get comfortable. I don’t know exactly how much weight I lost but at the height of my madness, I weighed a little under seven stone, which didn’t sit right on my 5’3 frame.
Oddly enough, my parents only started to comment on my weight as I started to put some back on. They seemed to put my behaviour down to study stress but that wasn’t it at all. I had had a couple of boyfriends despite my pubescent unhappiness, but I wanted the “cool” boys in my year to notice me, and sadly the more weight I lost, the more attention I captured. Skinniness was in vogue at my school, and sticking two fingers down your throat or scrimping on food, was par for the course for non-natural waifs – like me.
I felt so happy being thin and wearing tiny clothes. I remember my Mum bought me some Diesel jeans in a size six and when I put them on and they were a little baggy I was euphoric. But my close friends were quietly freaking out about it and I suddenly realised they were pulling away from me. One of my best friends had just watched her sister battling extreme anorexia and the idea that I was heading the same way was too much for her to handle. Then, one day just before the start of Sixth form, something inside me snapped and I started to dig into a plate of chips a family friend had finished with. I realised I had wasted so much time and energy counting calories and denying myself bits of chocolate and cake. Although I put weight on, my struggle with food didn’t end there. Throughout university I yo-yoed every year by consciously slimming down every summer, but I never put on more than a few pounds, even in my “heavy” times, before the self-destruct button kicked in and I stepped up the exercise and cut down on treats. These days, I’m much more relaxed about it all. I wouldn’t say I’ve got the best self-image going but with exercise and the unconditional adoration of a boyfriend I have learned to stop punishing myself for not looking like Kate Moss. A part of me will always want to, but fortunately the rest of me has realised there are far more important things to worry about.
I definitely hold the media fascination with thinness to blame for my body issues. If all the clothes on the high street weren’t being modelled by hand-span-waisted poster girls, I wouldn’t want to be one of them. Of course, clothes hang better off smaller frames, but for every woman whose genes are good enough to pull that off naturally, there will be another going to painstakingly neurotic measures to achieve the same result. And that won’t change until the fashion pages start celebrating the fact that women come in all shapes and sizes.
If you have an experience relating to the weight debate you’d like to share (anonymously if you prefer) please email editor@marmaladya.com or call 020 7834 0330 and ask to speak to Julia.
