Diet Culture Dictated How I Ate On Vacation
I should have been enjoying the local cuisine that we had the opportunity to enjoy. Instead, I felt anxiety whenever a meal would approach.
When I was seventeen, I took a trip to Belize with a Christian group and stayed with a missionary.
Although I no longer hold the same beliefs that I did back then, it was still an amazing experience and wouldn’t trade for the world.
There is one aspect of the trip that I would change if I could go back in time, and it would be my relationship with my body and how I ate while on a “vacation.”
For a few years in my young adult life, I suffered from orthorexia. I ate, so no one realized what was going on. But I counted calories to no end and was so strict that I would avoid seeing friends or being put into scenarios where I couldn’t control exactly what I was putting in my mouth. When I went out to eat, I would order a caesar salad with no dressing and stuff the dry lettuce and chicken into my mouth while avoiding the cheese and croutons.
Diet culture is at the core of our set beliefs.
Growing up, countless diets surrounded me. The South Beach Diet, The Atkins Diet, The 10-Day-Juice…
