I did ballet my whole childhood. I was used to wearing leotards, staring at myself in towering 7-foot mirrors, comparing myself to other girls, striving for perfection. But I could always eat.
Ballet was my passion, not my psychological downfall. Believe it or not, it was the lead-up to the Passion of Christ that did me in. That’s right, my eating disorder started one fateful Lent about six years ago.
If you’re unfamiliar, Lent is a 40-day season of fasting, prayer and almsgiving celebrated in the lead-up to Easter, or what Christians believe to be the Resurrection of Christ. It’s customary for observers of Lent to give something up to be one with Jesus’ suffering. Often children are encouraged to give up sweets, some adults opt to forgo swearing and others choose to give up their morning coffee.
My freshman year of high school in 2019, my mom announced that she and my dad were going to give up “carbs.” It sounds pathetic thinking about it now, but at the time I was enticed. Perhaps I could lead a healthier life, maybe lose a few pounds. Little did I know what this seemingly harmless form of “religious” fasting would trigger.
I soon restricted myself to lunches consisting of a few cherry tomatoes, perhaps a carrot or two. Oh, maybe some almonds! I was so exhausted and so irritable, but I couldn’t stop. As I physically got smaller, so did the world around me. I started isolating myself for fear of going out to eat. The only people I really ate around were my parents, so they wouldn’t catch on that anything was amiss.
Though I was eating less, my mind was consumed with food. I did not think about God or about this so-called sacrifice I was making. I thought about the food I couldn’t have, I thought about my body, I thought about my sick desire to lose just a few more pounds. Not for God, not for me. No, this desire was so deep within me, it felt like it was outside of me.
I felt so alone. So frail. So tired.
The fact was, this restriction was not in the name of Jesus. I was not trying to be in solidarity with anyone living or dead, certainly no son of God. It was for me. But after a while, it was outside of me. It was my mind, my illness telling me what to do, what to eat, how many sit-ups to do, how much I should eat before “excusing myself” to get rid of it.
There is limited research regarding a specific link between religious fasts and disordered eating.
However, the Journal of Eating Disorders conducted a 2022 study examining the “interconnectedness of religiosity and gender” on disordered eating patterns.
“Religious participants who indicated changing their eating habits for religious purposes experienced greater disordered eating and appearance-related pressures than theists who reported no change in their diet and non-religious respondents,” the study concluded.
Speaking from experience, it can be a very natural progression from simple fasting and restriction to long-lasting, dangerous lifestyle changes.
According to the National Eating Disorder Association, 62.3% of teenage girls and 28.8% of teenage boys report trying to lose weight and 58.6% of girls and 28.2% of boys are actively dieting.
In my case, it was the dedicated fasting and restriction that spurred me to feel the need to lose more and more weight. It was intoxicating. Addicting. Consuming.
But the thing is, in retrospect, I don’t think I would even classify my Lenten fast as a religious devotion. Yes, I believe in God and was raised Catholic. Yes, I respect all forms of religious fast and admire the selfless devotion religious fasts require. But I think my fast too quickly turned into a disorder. Something not even God could help me reconnect with.
Nevertheless, it seems God — or perhaps organized religion — planted the mustard seed of my eating disorder.
Maybe the neverending mind games are just my cross to bear. The restriction, binges and body dysmorphia are my father, son and holy ghost.
At least I am no longer an unholy ghost, a mere shadow of myself, no matter how much the sick part of my brain still longs to be. I guess you could say I rose from the dead.
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