And you thought the demonization of white bread was purely metaphorical…Experiencing the majority of my teen years during the ’90s meant a lot of things. First there was Grunge. Not only was it by far the best clothing trend ever – can’t beat dumpster diving for economy and you never had to do laundry, hey, hey! Although I could do without the snap-in-the-crotch Adult Onesies a.k.a. bodysuits – who can argue with the genius of Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder? Okay, you can argue but you’ll end up either shooting yourself or killed in a tragic 1940’s car accident where you sigh, “hold me darlin’ just a little while” right before you expire, virgin kiss still warm on your lips. Nothing says romance like those two men.
Second to music, the phenomenon most responsible for warping my developing mind was the After School Special. Don’t even pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Over the years I’ve discovered that each person has a personal fave that encouraged them to have random nightmares for years afterwards. For me, that one was Little Miss Perfect, a show about a girl who copes with her parents’ expectations and her own perfectionism by becoming bulimic. At least, I’m pretty sure it was this one – there were so many ASS’s (wow – was that intentional?) about eating disorders that I sometimes get them confused.
That Was Then
Anyhow, I first saw it in Middle School Health Class and was left with two lasting images: a) the girl hiding her vomit in glass jars in her closet (for reals? Wouldn’t you run out of room/jars pretty darn quick? Weren’t toilets invented for the very purpose of NOT having to put one’s bodily fluids into jars?) and b) how her esophagus literally exploded and she died at the end. SHE DIED, people, of a an esophagus that was so enraged at its mistreatment that it ripped through her throat like so many aliens and disgorged a stomachfull of ho-hos and twinkies and Big Macs all over the hospital stretcher while two handsome EMTs clucked disapprovingly (at her banana clip, I imagine now). My friends hid their eyes. I was mesmerized. You should have seen us in the cafeteria that next lunch hour.
Never before had I really paid attention to how my friends ate but suddenly we were all hyperaware that there were rules to eating and “signs” we should be watching for and honestly didn’t the show make it seem so disgusting it was almost glamorous in a canning-jar kind of way? Some of my friends went on to take that Special as a do-it-yourself guide to all things eating disordered. Others would just go on to hide their ding-dong wrappers under tissue paper in the waste basket for years and never really realize it was weird until a significant other asked them why they were burying their refuse and if they had a squirrel fetish they wanted to talk about.
This Is Now
So you will understand how I was taken right back to that place by Brian’s comment on my Functional Anorexia post:
I was at a Youth Conference last week with 25 kids 14-18yrs old. We had spaghetti/salad/rolls one night and many of the girls did not even touch it. The woman in charge over the girls grew up on a ranch in a small Colorado town and commented to me that she doesn’t understand why the girls don’t eat. She said when she was their age, when she was hungry, she ate. She then told me the next day that the girls ate every scrap of junk food/snacks we brought up for the nighttime. On the other 4th hand, the guys ate heartily, and did not even touch the nighttime snacks. But then again I hope the girls didn’t pass gas all night long either.
It’s like my scrawny 11-yr old daughter. She picks at her dinner and eats maybe 3 “mandatory” bites. And then raids the pantry all-night for chocolate chips, and potato chips, and cereal. And then complains that she’s fat.
Girls eat weird. We have strange habits when we eat with other girls. When we eat in front of men. Or in front of strangers. Or even by ourselves.
I see it in my current and former female students. This strange dance of abstaining righteously from food when it is served and then later binging in private when it is hoarded. As every grown woman (hopefully) knows, this sets up a terrible dynamic, both in regards to your mental state and your blood sugar. You starve in a fit of self-hate or self-righteousness and then pig out later on even worse foods because you are so hungry. It’s a terrible cycle.
How many times have I watched the teenage girls in the cafeteria pick half-heartedly at salads and then down a family-size bag of Starbursts at the late night study group? How many times have we as adults, ate perfectly pea-sized portions at a cocktail party (one nibble of eclair, two bites of broccoli and a lick of cheese quiche) and then gone home to eat an entire half gallon of freezer burned ice cream because we felt deprived?
I would even go so far as to say that this alone is not “disordered eating” – it’s pretty normal. Well, normal for a society that makes After School Specials anyhow.
We never had After School Special in the UK, but I distinctly remember watching Debbie from Neighbours (Aussie soap beloved by Brits) becoming bulimic and wondering A. how did finding lots of chocolate under her bed make her mum think “aha that’s why she’s getting so thin!” (I failed to make the connection – my 10-year old brain wondered how so many sweets could make you skinny?) and B. this is obviously a right of passage for teenagers that I have yet to encounter. I have no doubt that the producers of these programmes just want to create an accurate reflection of adolescent life, but for those of us who were too young to have fully experienced life as a teenager, it could only pre-empt our experiences and tell us what they should contain.
Interestingly, have you watched any of the shows like My So-Called Life and Party Of Five since they were first broadcast? They seemed amazing and insightful at the time, but I found them sorta depressing on the re-watch as an adult!
I never got to see after school specials! Because I was too busy playing basketball until 6:00 every night. I mostly remember that Saved by the Bell episode where Jessie takes caffeine pills. So deep, man. Oh, and my middle school principal was Mr. Belding. Seriously.
Maybe it’s because I grew up in sports and hanging out with male and female athletes, but we were always pigs. We never picked at our food, more likely we raced to see who could finish their pizza first. Or who could eat the most. While this was undoubtedly not healthy, I never develop this feeling of needing to eat less in front of others. I’ve often had people comment on how much I do eat.
I don’t remember really worrying about food and eating until at least junior or senior year. My mom always made pretty healthy food at home (and she also was a fad eater/dieter – tried them all), but she put a Little Debbie snack in our lunch every day. At least we usually took our lunch instead of buying that below grade crap they serve. Hamburger? I don’t think so.
Anyway, I distinctly remember putting on one of those super tight, short, spandex skirts in high school and wondering if I was “too fat” to wear it. I probably weighed all of 100# (5’1″) and my friends told me it looked great, but I was still self-conscious in it. I guess that’s when my body image issues started, (and I look at those pictures now and yearn – of course, I couldn’t do a pull up then 🙂 but I still ate that damn Little Debbie! I only learned about ED when I suspected my friend was bulemic (she was).
I wasn’t aware of any of my friends having eating disorders, although looking back on it, there was at least one person who ate like a bird in front of other people even though she was fairly overweight. But anorexics or bulimics? No one I knew. One girl in our high school was treated for anorexia, and it was the talk of the school (until the superintendent’s son got the class president pregnant and then dumped her).
I was always thin, but ate whatever I wanted. Luck and good genes or something at that age I guess.
I do worry now, especially watching my 10-year-old step-daughter who is at risk for being overweight (if she’s not already – I don’t know what she weighs exactly, but we’re exactly the same height and I know she weighs more than me). She will barely pick at whatever healthy food we serve at meals, and then gorge herself on whatever treats or junk food we bring out. Her mom has said she has found her hoarding food – found a drawer in her room filled with candy and sweets. I don’t want to ban all “goodies,” especially since that’s one of her favorite things about our house (yummy homemade goodies), but I also don’t want to have to cut her off because I’ve noticed that she’s eaten too many cookies, and make it obvious I’ve noticed how much she is eating.
Oh, and how I loved After School Specials. The superintendent’s son/quarterback of the football team/all around stereotypical “good kid” I mentioned (who really did knock up the girl who ended up being senior class president, and both were National Honor Society) met my husband at our 10-year class reunion and when he was describing who he was said, “We were sort of an After School Special.” It was funny. At least we can look back on things and laugh.
I am all about the After School Special LOVE (shocking I know).
and you nailed it.
disordered is the new black.
Man, did I LOVE those Afterschool Specials!
When I was in college, my mother wrote one, and I got a small part in it. It was awesome! (It was about a group of girls who cheat on an exam, and the awful consequences of it.)
Remember “High School Narc?” I think that was one of my favorites.
But, yeah, high school (and jr. high) was all about weight.
Yes. It is scary. Disordered eating has become the norm. How many people will hate themselves before it all stops?
i used to LOVE the afterschool specials and definitely My so called life! (ahhh…jordan!)
I never experienced any disordered eating among my friends until i hit college. Then i made up for lost time, I guess.
you are totally right though, now it is just the norm. even my 7 yr. old niece makes food comments.
Ah, how I loved those After School Specials. Though, now I wonder how many girls got their first ideas to try an eating disorder from these. For me they worked as warnings.
All of those links were great. Your article about the way girls eat in front of men is so true. I also find that I eat WAY more than I want to when I’m eating with friends/family who are overweight. I do it so that they will “feel comfortable”, but I’m really hurting myself when I do it (and maybe it just makes them hate me because it gives them the false idea that I eat that way all the time and am still skinnier than they are). I also do it to avoid the mean comments they can give about “eating like a bird.” Gosh, just ordering a salad can get you totally lambasted if you are eating with the wrong crowd.
watched all of the ASS too…for ideas/tips on how to be a better eating disordered nut that I was!
First off- Jared Leto is a douche bag.
Secondly- i TOTALLY saw the vom-jar ASS.
Thirdly- i used to do this. My mom would get so mad because i wouldnt eat dinner, and then 15 minutes later i would be raiding the pantry for a “snack” which was a bottoml;ess bowl of ice cream or cereal.
You know why?
cause ice cream is way better than whatever my mom made for dinner. i was just picky, and would rather have junk food. what kid wouldnt?