Anorexia: Lady Gaga and Me

Lady Gaga looking fabulous!

Lady Gaga has started a "Body Revolution 2013." She's been getting a lot of media attention lately for some photos of her on tour. It looks like she has gained a significant amount of weight and the media is ripping her apart. Gaga is taking this chance to tell her followers about her struggle with her weight for the last 11 years; also, that she has been a victim of anorexia and bulimia. She has posted some photos that show her as she is, without all the costumes and corsets. And, may I be the next in line to say that she looks fantastic! She is encouraging women and girls, as well as men, everywhere to be comfortable with their bodies and share their photos online. She is opening up about how it's more important to be healthy than to be super-skinny like the media pushes all of us to be. I love this!!! To be honest, I'm not a die-hard Gaga fan; I don't really listen to pop music all that much. This really got my attention, though! It's exactly what girls need: someone they admire and respect to say "enough" to the way women feel less-than if we're not uber-skinny like all the women we see on TV and in magazines.

Lady Gaga looks amazing!

The reason I like this campaign so much is that it is about health and loving who you are, not only about loving what you look like. While I really like the idea of loving what you look like, I feel like that can be used as a cop-out instead of working to get healthy. "Healthy" does not necessarily mean "skinny." Lady Gaga looks healthy and I think she looks pretty damn good. Is she a size 0? No. But so what? When did we get so stuck on having "little stick figures with poofy lips*" as our role models when it comes to what we look like?

I have struggled with anorexia for years, just like Lady Gaga and thousands of other women and girls have. I wanted so desperately to fit in, I felt terribly out of control, and I thought that if I was a 00 I would be pretty and popular (I didn't even know 00 was a size until I moved back to the States, but the second I knew it was, I had to be that size). I was known but I wasn't popular. Was I pretty? I don't think so...I was bony. I don't even have photos of myself during the first few years of it because I hated my body so much. Was I in control? Sure, of what I ate, but the further I went along the road, the more out of control I felt. I passed out at inopportune moments, I had the lowest self-esteem I've ever had, and I did things that were hurtful to myself and others to keep my struggle secret. Am I completely over it? No. I don't know if those of us who have experienced anorexia or bulimia ever really "get over it" like so many people who haven't gone through it think we should. But I fight every day to keep moving forward.

Now, I am 5'3" and I weigh 108 pounds. I'm a size 2 and I've "grown out" of most of my XS shirts. I have literally spent hours crying over this. Crying over being a size 2, because now I'm "fat." Crying about weighing more than 100 pounds because I used to weigh 97 so that must mean that I'm fat, now that I'm 11 pounds heavier. Crying over the fact that I can't wear super-teeny t-shirts that tiny pre-pubescent sixth graders are wearing. But I know that what I'm doing now is the right thing. I do yoga every day. I work out 3-6 times a week. I see a psychologist once a week. I eat at least 1600 calories a day. I should probably be eating more than that. It is still so hard. But I am getting better.

This is an epidemic the size of which a lot of people do not realize. Keep talking about it, keep sharing your stories, keep trying to get better, keep sharing your photos with Lady Gaga! Let's have a media take-over of women who love their healthy bodies! We've all heard of Take Back the Night; let's Take Back the Media! In keeping with what I'm preaching here, I suppose I owe this post a photo.

Me, Body Revolution 2013.

It is actually surprisingly hard to share this. It took me about 30 minutes to get a photo of myself that I could tolerate and I'm still finding problems with this one. I am so self-conscious and I don't like everyone seeing this. But if Lady Gaga can do it, I can, too. You can, too, at LittleMonsters.com.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." --Gandhi

*Edna Mode, "The Incredibles"