Have you ever felt so over-weight or underweight that food becomes your enemy?; been there, done that. Before we start, let's understand what eating disorder and mental health means.
Eating disorder is about more than food. They’re complex mental health conditions that often require the intervention of medical and psychological experts to alter their course. Mental health, defined by the World Health Organization, is:
“a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stress of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community”.
There are various numbers of mental health challenges people go through, eating disorder is just one type. Most people are very insecure even if they don't show it; some narcissistic persons have low self-esteem and mask that in that personality disorder. I mentioned in my previous blog post that I am plus-size and being bullied was and still is a thing for me. Presently on social media there are a lot of weight loss and weight gain products being sold to people; the world we live in today has conditioned our mind to thinking that to be tagged as sexy or good looking, you have to possess a certain type of body figure. Way back it was that you have got to be slim to be good looking, models we see in magazines, televisions etc. were all slim and now it's having a figure 8 (big ass, big boobs, snatched waist, straight legs, big lips) and so on. Many individuals have believed this mindset that they spend thousands and millions trying to achieve the so called society approved shape. To be honest I am one of them, not proud of it but I did fall, I have tried almost everything and none worked for me, maybe 1 or 2 gave me a little result but they were not visible as advertised on their pages. I end up gaining back double of the weight. I hate going out because of how I look, mind you this is where mental health comes in. I believe I am the biggest girl in the world, even though I don't come close to taking that position at all. I have spoken to a lot of plus-size and slim people and one thing most of them had in common was that they blamed it on food.
The plus sized individual will say i eat little and yet I add a lot of weight, the slim individual will say I eat a lot and yet it's like the food won't stay. "They made food the enemy", forgetting that we are all different and have different types of body shapes and sizes and some have really good metabolism that no matter how much they eat, they never add weight except they take supplements, and some people only have to take a bite and it shows; but because our society makes us feel like we are outcast we get obsessed with wanting to look good and forgetting ourselves. Being on the plus-size did affect my mental health, though not in a really bad way but It made me extremely shy, I hate going out, I don’t socialize, I avoid and create excuses to chilling with people, and wear really big clothes to cover up my shape, but even when I did go out or meet with people it never stopped them from saying how fat I am and as an over thinker, I relive that scenario over and over again thinking of ways I could have avoided it, what to say and all, it made me sad, pissed and I hated myself, my body and everything about me. It took learning and lots of reading to actually learn to love myself, I never believe when people tell me they love me because I always ask, what's there to love, who can love a person like me, why do you even love me etc. But I had to work on myself, first by loving my body and accepting the way I am and then I decided to take up a healthy living lifestyle. I may not be able to get the desired shape or figure I want but at least I know my immune system Is boosted up to fight and resist any illness. After all you are what you eat.
I know it's not easy, trust me it's still a work in progress for me, I still have people talk about my weight, I just began to avoid such people, because to be in a healthy mental state you have to avoid negative energies, try to be positive always, say positive things to yourself, be proud of you and ignore because no one is perfect, they may have the body you want but they are battling with something else that you don’t know, either physically or mentally.
I just wish people can understand that body shaming people doesn’t make you superior, it makes you a bully and a murderer because your words can lead a person to committing suicide or even get sociopathic and come harm you later in life. Mind your words; Love everyone no matter how they look. You can’t create anything so don't insult the work of a person that can.
