Why I Binge: Unraveling a Lifetime of Disordered Eating
People ask me sometimes: “Why do you do it?” (Binge, that is.) “I mean… you look great. You seem healthy. I just don’t get it.”
I can never come up with a simple answer.
But here is my attempt.
To begin: I was a chubby child.
And, no, I don’t mean that in a degrading sense. I’m not ashamed. It’s just a fact. I had cheeks the size of tennis balls, a “coconut-head”-style haircut; and a persistent, wide-mouthed smile. Everything about me was round.
In retrospect, I was pretty darn cute. But of course, at the time, I didn’t see it that way.
Rather, I saw myself as oversized and un-proportional. I constantly felt like other kids were staring at me, annoyed at how much space I was taking up. In reality, I’m sure no one gave me a second thought — goodness knows prepubescent kids each have their own insecurities to obsess over. But my anxious mind convinced me otherwise.
Both my parents are athletic, especially my father. And I mean, overzealously athletic. Still to this day, he wakes up at 4AM every morning and immediately goes to the gym. He exercises for 2 hours before heading to work, and then in the evening, plays…
