Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Food Cop from an eating disorder perspective

I love this post by author and eating disorder activist, Laura Collins. Here is an excerpt:

"The grocery store is a guided map to "low" "no" "free" consumption that we then drive somewhere to "work" off in measured increments of self-loathing. We eat inside a moral sculpture in the shape of our bodies.

This is the hectoring unpleasantness we call healthy. This is the lifestyle we laud and the new Kool-Aid we give the kids. Do too much of it and you'll be the "Food Police" and do too little and you are part of the Childhood Obesity Crisis. The margin of normal? Vanishingly thin."

I like her passion and her observations. I also bemoan the fact that "normal" eating in our culture is completely abnormal. Having worked in a University Health Clinic, I saw a glimpse of the devastation that an eating disorder can bring on a patient and her/his family.

Thanks for your voice, Laura! Please check out her website FEAST for information for families and parents struggling with this illness.

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