“Growing up in ‘TrackTown USA’ makes it hard to ignore
the fitness fanatics, and if you have an eating disorder,
every person is a game of comparison,” Stewart says. “A
lot of people are very athletic, which makes it easy to hide
dissatisfaction behind obsessive workouts.”
And, of course, our town celebrates thoughtful eating.
You can have a moral or health objection to just about
anything and find appropriate accommodations. Klose has
noticed girls using our culture of elaborate food constructs
to restrict. They go vegetarian, vegan, gluten- and dairy-
free, “not for any moral or health reason, but in the vein
of restricting.”
ROOTED IN ANXIETY
Fostering a distressed body image will not necessarily
lead to an eating disorder. Bulimia, binge eating and
anorexia are classified as anxiety disorders, which
psychologists think may be genetic.
“Biology loads the gun,” Klose says, “but society
pulls the trigger.” According to Klose, women are trying
to manage anxiety, stress and even PTSD with an eating
disorder. “When a person restricts or purges, it will slow
down neurotransmitters in such a way that it will be
calming. There is a chemical response in the brain. You
feel better, but the response erodes over time.”
Stewart describes that confluence of influence. “My
struggle with body image started as a result of being
heavily immersed in ballet culture, where perfectionism
and long body lines are sought after,” she says. “I felt like
being skinny would make me successful and admired, and
make my mother proud.”
At 13, she continues, “I began counting calories every
day and judging the success of my days based on how
much I ate. Days over 1,000 calories were a failure. My
mother is a recovered bulimic and told me about her eating
disorder in great detail, so I had a ‘role model’ of sorts as I
grew into my own eating disorder.”
BODY DISTRESS BEGINS AT HOME
“Family influence is important, and research shows
that parents who diet and value a thin ideal have daughters
who struggle to achieve that ideal,” Larson says. Klose
LAURENE LARSON
SAYS THERE’S MORE
TO HEALTH THAN A
SLIM FIGURE
says that the negative language adults use towards their
bodies in a household directly impacts kids, and if kids
are seeing an adult restrict or binge, they are learning
that’s OK.
Stewart’s reflection gives a frightening illustration of
that point. “My mother was an alcoholic and was abusive
during my childhood, so as I reached high school, I began
using food as a means to cope with the pain and guilt
I was feeling,” she says. “I had seen my mother binge
before, often while intoxicated, and I saw how she used
food to numb her feelings. This led to a very secretive
relationship with food, where I was for all appearances
a ‘health freak,’ but would then go home and binge on
ice cream and pizza. Being in control of what I ate made
me feel powerful, like I had my life together, when I was
really hurting inside.”
Media-raised mammas are key in understanding the
persistence of body-image distress. Marketing to teens
began in earnest in the 1970s. MTV was launched in 1980,
and other teen-centered programming quickly followed.
Thus the first group of women to grow up with the full-
scale, destructive effects of media on body image is now
parenting.
Living with body shame for the last 20 years, we seek to
shield our daughters from that shame — not by smashing
in our televisions and coming to peace with our bodies, but
by trying to help our daughters stay slim.
We must be aware that every time we engage with media
images, we are affected and make choices accordingly.
Knowing the media is doing its best to make you feel your
worst, you can decide if something is entertaining enough
to be worth it.
As the adults in this situation, we need to find peace
with our bodies. Perhaps we can follow Emi Stewart’s
road: “For me, recovery has been about learning how to
love myself. I had to let go of the guilt I held onto from my
childhood, realize that none of it was my fault and learn
how to acknowledge and express those emotions I had
stuffed down for so long.” ■
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eugeneweekly.com • January 8, 2015
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