Supporting Our Valued Adolescents: A place to learn, share your strength, be positive, and grow.
We all feel some kind of way about food. You may have heard the phrase that some live to eat, while others eat to live. While it’s a necessity, some find pleasure in eating, or at the very least, taking photos of food that looks nice to post on social media.
I was recently swiping mindlessly through my friends’ Snapchat stories when I came across one who had storied a flyer from her gym titled, “Maintain, Don’t Gain!” that quoted the “statistic” that, “the average American will gain 5-10 lbs this holiday season.” The point of their flyer was to encourage users to sign up for more fitness classes this season.
As I’ve mentioned before, I struggle with binge eating. That being said, one of the biggest holidays revolving around food is coming up fast. This causes so much anxiety for me leading up to it.
I grew up always being overweight, I was that kid that tried every diet in the book, or every form of exercise and still wasn’t able to drop the weight. During what may be my entire childhood, I binge ate when no one was home – I have accounts where I would eat tubs of raw cookie dough, or containers of ice cream when no one was home; after school and alone time was just dangerous for me.
Does it feel like sometimes, your mental health ebbs and flows with your hormonal cycle? You’re definitely not alone. I used to think I was losing it: because not only did I display physical symptoms of PMS, but I would also notice a flare-up of symptoms of my mental illness, or an episode of severe depression or anxiety which coincided with this time during my cycle.
Writing this is very freeing to me. For as long as I can remember I’ve had an issue with food. I’ve associated food with good feelings, and to have that make sense, every time after a good soccer game, we would go get ice cream. Situations like that began my unhealthy relationship with food.
The blog post includes mentions of eating disorders and body dysmorphia. Please read with caution if any of these items triggers or upsets you.
This year, Mental Health Awareness Month overlaps with the Islamic month of Ramadan. The simplest association with Ramadan is fasting: from sunrise to sunset everyday, Muslims who are able to fast do not eat or drink anything (even water).
The blog post includes mentions of eating disorders and self-harm. Please read with caution if any of these items triggers or upsets you.
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