Part 2 - Unhealthy eating

Hiya!

I just want to begin by saying that it is currently Ramadan and I’m fasting. Everything is going well, and my current situation does not reflect what I am going to describe here.

Following on from the last post, the girls who went to my primary didn’t come to my secondary. For the people who did come, it was the nicer people. So, I was fine. Although, I was not happily myself. I was very introverted, even though I am not that shy. I had trust issues with people who I had no reason not to trust. That was unfair on them. I knew it was an issue with myself which I had to deal with. I think this was when I began not communicating with my family properly.

My perfectionism and determination can be positive qualities. However, these qualities can also be my downfall. I wanted to change everything that I felt was wrong with me. I began over-eating. This seems normal and I get that a lot of people do this, but I do feel that this was excessively unhealthy. I’m not saying that I was ever ‘fat’, but I did put on a lot of weight compared to how I used to be.

I think it got to me more because I was singled out for being ‘fat’ in primary school. Not that I was when I look at old photos of me, so I do not really know what that was about. Also, I don’t agree that somebody should be made to feel bad about their appearance no matter what they look like. Now, I feel like everybody looks pretty in their own way. Then, I was made to feel that you had to look a certain way to be pretty, and so I began intentionally losing weight. This became progressively more towards the latter years of secondary. I think I developed some unhealthy eating habits during this process and some creative methods in trying to hide it.

The only people who cared enough to get me to stop were my family, especially my mum. Therefore, hiding my unhealthy eating habits was essential to being able to attain my desired appearance. My mum has always been conscientious about the impact of unrealistic and idealised expectations placed upon young girls. She was outspoken to me about this topic and never wanted me to feel those pressures. For example, she would never buy me Barbie dolls because she disagreed with the unrealistic appearance of women. She felt that buying me Barbies may create young girls to develop a negative opinion of their appearance. I felt like this was good parenting, but it did not stop me from feeling the way I did because it was other girls who made me feel the way I did. As a result of my mum being conscientious on this matter, I had to become more creative in hiding my unhealthy eating habits.

As a Muslim, I took advantage of the month of Ramadan for the wrong reasons. It is meant to be a spiritual month where Muslims fast, from sunrise until sunset, for approximately 30 days. When I was in primary, I would fast for spiritual reasons. This changed, as I was determined to lose weight. Ramadan became about losing weight. Ramadan enabled me to not eat without being caught by my family. I would hardly eat anything to make or break my fast. Towards the end, my mum did notice, but I said I felt sick from not eating then suddenly having to eat a lot in a short period of time. This isn’t surprising, as many people feel the same way. However, this is a temporary feeling. Once Eid had come and perhaps a few days after it had passed, most people are able to eat normally. However, I was still wanting to lose weight, so I was still limiting my food.

Intentionally not eating was hard. So, I thought to make myself physically sick. I stopped this thought: I knew that was a slippery slope and God wouldn’t be happy with me. He wouldn’t be happy with me anyway, but it seemed more physically noticeable to others if I began doing this. Instead, I somehow manipulated my own mind to make myself feel sick before I ate. This meant that the bare minimum of food was entering my body. Simultaneously, I was over-exercising. My family noticed and they were questioning me.

Naturally, I had the biggest drop in my weight during that summer. I went from a UK size 10 to a size 2. That’s a size 0 in the US sizing. At the time, this was the smallest size that was available. My grandmother would even stich up those clothes, as they were too big for me.

There was a point where I was becoming ill. This is the only reason why I stopped limiting my food so much. Reintroducing food into my body was hard, but I began to do so because I was worried about my health. Even though I was gradually eating more, I didn’t want to. My previous extreme efforts of losing weight became threatened by eating more. However, I did try to not to think about losing weight.

I would like to note that Ramadan is a blessed month for Muslims. I simply wasn’t in the position mentally and physically to be fasting and it was my own fault for doing so. I don’t advise anybody to do what I did. I also don’t advise anybody to starve themselves and/or excessively exercise because, as you can see, it’s not worth it.

This will be discussed further in my next post, which is situated around sixth form.

Thank you for reading,

Shanaz Xx