I posted this comment:
I was literally just thinking about this, because I think that so much of the bad relationships we have with our bodies as women are directly related to bad relationships with food.
Even for women without an official disorder, as you say, there is a nasty relationship. Every bite must be guilt-ridden, even if it's something healthy and we're hungry. I know that this is true for a measurable percentage of men, as well (which says something to society at large), but the vast majority of women view food as something to be minimized, avoided, controlled, and only truly enjoyed in the company of other women, and with an "excuse," if at all.
Attaching guilt to an inherently vital life function is probably a bad idea.
Further along that note, I recall a conversation I had with my mother and grandmother about the health problems raging among the elderly female population. Problems like osteoporosis and other essentially nutritional deficiencies. How much of that is because the currently aging generation of women was one that was not only raised with unhealthy relationships to food, but spent the entirety of their vital years essentially starving themselves? Of course they have nutritional deficiencies; they weren't eating enough during pregnancies which were sapping their bodies of strength and nutrients, they didn't eat after their pregnancies, and then they just didn't ever eat. My paternal grandmother has a frame exactly like my own (if I had zero fat or muscle on me my hip measurement would still probably be about 40"), and yet has never weighed more than 140lb. That, my friends, is a gaunt body.
And the saddest part, of course, is that we don't do it to ourselves. Even the rare women who do have healthy food relationships (I have yet to meet one) have to explain themselves.
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