What is Eating You?

Doctors are pushing GLP-1's, Liv Shmidt is splitting 170 calorie egg-white bites with a friend, and fashion influencers are running on cigarettes and black coffee as meal replacements. And me? I am but a deer, standing in the middle of the road, waiting for a car. Today I come to you live from Newark airport, where the young woman sitting directly in front of me is inspecting the width of her own thigh gap via candid photographs of last night's escapades while snacking on an organic squeezy apple-sauce packet. The irony of the matter: she has no idea that the young woman sitting directly behind her is waiting patiently to fly home for eating disorder treatment.

There is no real, significant difference between these two women. That is, of course, other than the simple fact that one is blissfully unaware that she is being eaten alive and other has already been consumed and regurgitated several times. That's the funny thing about eating disorders, they encourage you to starve so that they might fit you into their big, fat, glutinous mouth and eat you alive. They must be the only monster that prefers to nibble on bones rather than meat. The most disturbing fact of the matter is that many women today want to be eaten. They march right into the lions den, green tea in one hand, probiotics in the other, and say, "take me."

They lie at social functions, claiming "I ate dinner before I came," as if anyone in their right mind eats before an event at which they know there will be endless amounts of food to snack on. They get oat milk in their lattes, a classic, masking an eating disorder with lactose intolerance. Are you also alergic to full-sugar syrups and caramel drizzle? And, be honest, is that your lunch? They are so afraid to gain weight that they are unknowingly inching closer to their own demise one latte at a time.

Real women are afraid of recession, not calories.

In all seriousness, the skinny girl epidemic needs to die before we do. Everyone wants to preach gut health, and pretend they walk 10k steps to live a healthy lifestyle. The survivors of ED Twitter want you to know we've been doing this for years, and it won't be long until you can only walk 5k steps without getting light-headed. Stop hiding behind your nonfat, plain greek yogurt and say it like it is, you're obsessed with being skinny. You spend every second of every day thinking about how many steps you've walked and how long you will wait until your next meal. And for what? Because skinny is in, thigh gaps are fashionable, ribcages are taking on the runways. The truth of the matter is that fashion is circular. Skinny was trending in the 90's, and by 2015 we had "the year of the butt." In a decade or so we will all laugh about the laxatives we took. That is, if our bones don't crumble before then.