Growing Up With Your Mother's Eating Disorder

originally posted 28 OCT 2014

My mother has an eating disorder but I never realized it until I was an adult. She's had it since I was a young girl. Looking at her photos during this tiny time in which she saw herself as fat, her BMI was likely in the 24 to 25 range, not even considered overweight but she always talked about hating parts of her body and always talks of that time as her fat years.

She started following fad diets. The Beverly Hills Diet was a big one. She'd have days where she only ate pineapple or strawberries. Over time this has changed but she generally lives on rice, broccoli, pineapple and bananas. Her BMI, when I was a teen, was 17 which is underweight and she worked to keep it there. She exercised more and ate less.

She had always commented on my weight. When I was fourteen, I weighed a whopping 109 lbs and I was pretty much to my full height of 5'5". She told me over and again that I was overweight and even though I was an inch taller than her, I had smaller bones and needed to weight less than her. She kept her weight really close to 100. And she really thought I needed to weigh under 100 lbs. She would pay me or bribe me to lose weight. I believed her so I'd do those stupid fad diets as well. I had a terrible self body image, believed I was totally undesirable and I really believe it was a huge influence in making some very unwise choices as a teenager.

Long story short, it's been a long time since I weighed 109. At my best weight, I was quite a bit above that. I was in the military. I was in really good shape and I remember telling a military doctor how overweight I was and he quickly corrected me. He said contrary to what I'd been told, I was not small boned and I was where I needed to be. That totally changed the way I thought. My BMI was smack dab in the middle of healthy.

What has happened to my mother? She still eats the same way. Because she avoided dairy for decades, she has a very severe case of osteoporosis. I wonder if she even weighs less now because she looks even more gaunt and definitely older. She's had plastic surgeries to get rid of her fat and change her trouble spots (yes, even with a BMI of 17) and I've watched her encourage people in her church to have surgeries as well. Whenever she talks about somebody, one of the first things to come out of her mouth is how they look and whether they've gained or lost weight.

One thing I've learned from all of this is to really work to ensure my kids see themselves as beautiful. It took me years to see the beauty in myself and I don't ever want my children having a childhood like mine.