Diet Culture Nurtures ED

Like a family protects, feeds and nurtures their child, diet culture plays that role for eating disorders. Reinforcement of ED's strength, ED's individual "value" to society, ED's status, and ED's worth are found everywhere there is media, social gatherings, health care, and retail. We buy "support garments", books, pills, memberships to gyms and groups that will all promise us that ubiquitous, unattainable, thin ideal. Like wealth, there is never an arrival. The objective continues to move. Who sets that standard? What does it feel like? Is it healthier? Is it even sustainable? Are Oparah, Marie Osmond, and Jennifer Hudson truly happier when thinner, or does it take over their life? ED took away the life I live when I allowed it to control me. I gave it hours, counting grams, calories, measuring, weighing, and recording day and night. I felt just as deprived when I followed the Dietician's plan as I was when I severely restricted, but my size shrunk much faster. My ED became my jealous but close friend. Emotional agony, with loneliness, feelings of worthlessness, and shame, were comforted by my ED. It was always there. ED was my secret, my super power, and my lover. I felt lost without it. Diet culture continues to give ED it's influence and power, like a dynasty with an immortal child.