Why We Need More ‘Hunger’ And Less ‘To The Bone’

My eating disorder story — and the collective story of those like me — has become the only story.

The last bit of text that I highlighted while reading Hunger, Roxane Gay’s recently released memoir about her experience in her body, came just paragraphs before the end of the book: “I appreciate that at least some of who I am rises out of the worst day of my life and I don’t want to change who I am.” Next to it, I scribbled a flurry of exclamation points.

I closed the pages when I was finished, and I sat with the feelings that remained, encompassed by those last underlines. I, too, have always responded this way. When people have asked — late at night while looking at the stars, or on a first date, daring the getting-to-know-you conversation forward — what in my past I wish I could erase, I’ve hemmed and hawed. The butterfly effect always feels too drastic: If I altered that experience, then who would I be today?

Our stories matter because they tell us who we are.

This is especially true when I think back on my eating disorder past — an unfortunate spiraling after having decided to go on a diet to secure a quote-unquote “revenge body” following a breakup with an emotionally abusive partner. If I had never fallen into…