Amy's story

"I had been struggling with my eating disorder since I was 16 but I didn’t tell anyone, partly because I was in denial and partly because I was ashamed of my disordered eating habits. I didn’t open up to anyone about my struggles until I was 17 and I didn’t go to a doctor until I was 18. I was then diagnosed with anorexia, and 3 months later I was admitted to a psychiatric unit as an inpatient.

I stayed on the unit for 6 months and missed out on the rest of my first year at University. After this time my team discharged me, and I then decided I was ready to take on recovery. Talking about this now almost a year on from being discharged, a lot of things have changed and for the better.

Finding self-esteem at first was very difficult. Even at my lowest weight where I had to be taken around in a wheelchair by staff at the hospital, I still felt that i was ‘fat’. In order to rationalise these thoughts, I had to separate the “anorexic voice” in my head from my real thoughts. This voice would tell me that I’m worthless, fat, greedy, anything critical to do with myself or food.

I had to challenge the thoughts that told me “you’re fat” or “don’t eat that” by reminding myself that the anorexia was lying to me, I was not actually fat, and I do deserve to eat, despite what the voice in my head was telling me. This helped me accept my body and my weight gain and see it as a good thing rather than a bad thing. I also realised that anorexia had taken my life away from me and gaining weight back was the only way I would gain my life back, and getting my life back meant more to me than being ‘thin’ ever did. 

In a society surrounded by diet culture and toxic attitudes towards weight, it’s so hard to stay positive all of the time. To me diet culture is a system of oppression which profits from people’s insecurities. Diet culture values thin bodies, flat stomachs and small waists. It labels food as morally good or bad, for example vegetables are “clean foods” and carbohydrates and fats are seen as “cheat” foods or “sins”. Weight gain is shamed, and weight loss is praised, whether the weight loss happened in a healthy way or not.

Companies sell diet products such as ‘detox teas’ and weight loss pills through social media influencers with a large following, accessible to vulnerable people and young children. By diet culture shaming people’s body types, it encourages them to buy these products in order to try and attain the ideal thin body type that is glorified. However, most of these products have been proven to be ineffective and dangerous in some cases, putting vulnerable people and children at risk and exploiting buyers. "

"Diet culture will never care whether people lose weight or not, whether they are at risk or whether they are vulnerable. Diet culture only cares about the money it makes, hence why it is a multi-billion-dollar industry."