This book took me my whole life to write because it took me a lifetime of living it, a lifetime of mustering up the courage to tell my truth and four more years of writing and editing to bring this book to fruition. This book is quite literally my life's work.
There's a saying that a writer should write the book they want to read themselves. That is very much how this book came to be. During the years of struggling with binge eating and extreme dieting, I read a number of memoirs on the topic and found that they often glossed over the details of their "food episodes" or they ended with something like "and then I started therapy! The End." I wanted to write a book that really "went there" and shared all the (formerly shameful) details to show a reader what it is really like to struggle with disordered eating. I don't end the book with starting the healing journey, I start with it because I wanted to give readers a window into what that process is really like.
I wrote this book because there are an estimated 30 million Americans who suffer from an eating disorder and because the most common disordered relationships with food include a binge element. The reason this topic is especially relevant now is because due to the Covid Shelter in Place, more people are reporting weight gain tied to using food to self soothe (termed “Covesity”). Further, common risk factors of full-fledged eating disorders are abuse and unfortunately, emotional, verbal and financial abuse are still not considered as legitimate as physical or sexual abuse in our culture. My goal in sharing my (deeply personal) memoir is to open conversation about abuse and disordered relationships with food and body because these topics have carried such shame in our society. Knowledge, insight, compassion and conversation are the only ways we can dismantle that shame and destigmatize these issues so that real healing can take place for the millions of people who struggle with them.
There's a saying that a writer should write the book they want to read themselves. That is very much how this book came to be. During the years of struggling with binge eating and extreme dieting, I read a number of memoirs on the topic and found that they often glossed over the details of their "food episodes" or they ended with something like "and then I started therapy! The End." I wanted to write a book that really "went there" and shared all the (formerly shameful) details to show a reader what it is really like to struggle with disordered eating. I don't end the book with starting the healing journey, I start with it because I wanted to give readers a window into what that process is really like.
I wrote this book because there are an estimated 30 million Americans who suffer from an eating disorder and because the most common disordered relationships with food include a binge element. The reason this topic is especially relevant now is because due to the Covid Shelter in Place, more people are reporting weight gain tied to using food to self soothe (termed “Covesity”). Further, common risk factors of full-fledged eating disorders are abuse and unfortunately, emotional, verbal and financial abuse are still not considered as legitimate as physical or sexual abuse in our culture. My goal in sharing my (deeply personal) memoir is to open conversation about abuse and disordered relationships with food and body because these topics have carried such shame in our society. Knowledge, insight, compassion and conversation are the only ways we can dismantle that shame and destigmatize these issues so that real healing can take place for the millions of people who struggle with them.