I was 11 years old the first time I was put on a diet. My maths teacher had come up with the brilliant idea to weigh all the girls in my class, in order to teach us about data collection and graphs. One by one, we were weighed in front of each other, and gasps, envy and ridicule naturally ensued. It was an all-girls school, after all.
I wasn’t the only girl triggered in that class. It made a mark on all of us. We saw skinny confirmed as an achievement. We all wanted it. Suddenly, we were all keener to take part in sports, all avoiding the pasta bake and pizzas at lunch, and there was the longest queue for the bathroom afterwards because so many girls were making themselves sick. There were SlimFast cans everywhere. Anorexia became a secret badge of honour.
Throughout my teens and early 20s I was consumed by all of it. I drank all the detox teas, I took all the laxatives, I did all the fad diets, I studied all the pro-anorexia websites. I spent every penny I had on trying to be thinner. According to a study from 2014, more than 29 million Britons had attempted to lose weight in the previous year. As the average person gets bigger, so too does the weight-loss industry. Its global value is expected to reach £220 billion by 2023. Less than 5% of people who lose weight keep it off for more than five years. The vast majority of diets do not lead to sustained weight loss.
Most prolonged denial of a food can cause a fixation with food, which leads to an increase in binges, where food becomes weaponised as sin, self-harm, rebellion or freedom. This often leads to weight gain. Our obsession with “clean” food has a name by the way: orthorexia.
jameelajamil McDonald's, Coca Cola, Frito Lay and Archer Daniels Midland are dangerously toxic.
jameelajamil Heartbroken by jameela’s experience. it hit so close to me. In awe of her strength intelligence and integrity to overcome her experience and spreading this wonderful insight to the diet industry!! Also, a big THANK YOU 😊
jameelajamil
jameelajamil I'm 5'9, the most i've ever weighed is 115 pounds, this past month is the first time I've ever gone above that weight. Thanks to Jameelas words I realised if people have a problem with me being healthy, and a healthy weight thats their problem-not mine.
jameelajamil fuck 'em up, Jameela