Me, myself, and my thighs

[onedreamtree]

Had an extensive (ummm, two hours?) conversation with Erin about eating disorders. Throughout the discussion, which began with a comment about J.Lo I think, we both slowly began to realize a few unnerving things. We spend 24 hours a day, 7 days a week surrounded by people who are either beautiful, anoerexic, or in D&P. (Sorry, I couldn't resist...)We sit about and make catty comments about the underweight 13 year old ballerinas, joke about losing weight, and yet...somewhere along the way, we have begun to get lost in it all. This whole desire to be in good shape, have a good body, is so easily slipped out of control. You don't really notice until it hits you in the face. When you start counting everything you eat, "forgetting" lunch, dinner..When you are used to going to bed hungry. Even more disturbing, when you feel like you SHOULD be going to bed hungry, when you can feel that power rush at not eating enough. I track my meals, and realize that I can usually count on one hand how much I've eaten that day. Blame it on my ADD, but there's something scary about that. When you start blurring the lines of skinny and sick. It's gotten so that we've become desensitzed to being too skinny. I mean, we see these horribly sick girls, and the thing is, we do this double mental take. When the obviously underweight girl in our class is suddenly just thin, and the busty girl is fat, then your mind sort of jumps back and says, "Wait a minute...." I have never really thought so much about this stuff. I am coming to realize how very dangerous a situation we are in. We are walking this incredibly thin line, just teetering on the edge of cautious and unhealthy. It would be so easy, so very easy, just to shift, just a little bit, and start falling into starving ourselves, not being good enough. It's frightening. Frightening, and yet at the same time, somehow seductive, that idea of playing with fire, so to speak. Honestly, we already are playing with fire. I have found myself automatically looking at my reflection in a more critical way, looking at girls who starve themselves and thinking, "Well, they're a bit thin.", seeing pictures of celebrities who I KNOW to be in awesome shape and thinking that they could lose some weight. I realize now just how dangerous a proffesion I am going into. And the really disturbing part is, these dangerous habits are becoming my reflexes. When I am late for lunch, my automatic response is to skip it. Um, no? Not good! Judgement, judgement and confusion. I still don't like my thighs. But when I start justifying not eating by how nice and flat my stomach looks when empty, a part of my brain starts yelping "Warning! Flashing red lights!!!! Bad idea! Warning!" So I go eat. But having to think about it is not quite the healthy lifestyle I'd formerly considered.
Damn. Whoever thought that legs should determine self worth?
-Glenna