How I Learned to Shamelessly Eat Ice Cream Again
A young woman’s journey of dismantling toxic beliefs about food.
If there’s one food that comes to mind when thinking back on my childhood, ice cream is it.
The hot midwest summers. Winning (or losing) a soccer game. Needing a sweet treat on the drive home after a four-hour swimfest at the waterpark.
These were all occasions for ice cream.
Whether it was a Peanut Buster Parfait at Dairy Queen or an old-fashioned chocolate malt at Annabelle’s (when my parent’s felt like supporting local), I was one happy-go-lucky kid who enjoyed the simple pleasure of a tasty treat.
But by age 11, that all changed. The body image distress I’d undergone for many years prior compounded when I started secretly reading my mom’s issues of Redbook and Cosmopolitan and picking up commentary in the television shows I watched.
It seemed at every turn of a page and every flip of a channel, diet culture was rearing her heavily hair-sprayed bleach-blonde head.
Before I knew it, my beloved ice cream was now a banned food, and a can of chalky Slim Fast took its place. I’d spend the next 15 years battling multiple…
