"A cold fist squeezed my stomach because I knew exactly what she was referring to. I would never forget the days of watching my daughter eat less and less, turn down food at dinner, and throw away almost entire meals when we ate out, as she slipped into the trap of disordered eating. The worst part was that I knew that trap all too well. When I was her exact same age I was admitted to a hospital for anorexia nervosa."
"My weight was dangerously low after a series of traumatic circumstances left me reeling, grappling for a sense of control in my life, and finding that control in what I ate. Or rather, didn't eat. I was in treatment for 26 days, during which I was often confined to bed for hours due to problems with my pulse and blood pressure."
A mother restrains her protective instincts when her 15-year-old daughter, new to high school, reports a health class assignment requiring a food journal and calorie tracker. The daughter begs the mother not to intervene and later returns home in tears after a teacher joked about eating just 1,000 calories a day. The mother recalls watching her daughter increasingly restrict food and remembers her own adolescent hospitalization for anorexia nervosa. The mother describes 26 days of treatment, medical complications, and ongoing nightly calorie counting after discharge as a form of control.
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