Experiencing the majority of my teen years during the ’90s meant a lot of things. First there was Grunge. Not only was it by far the best clothing trend ever – can’t beat dumpster diving for economy and you never had to do laundry, hey, hey! Although I could do without the snap-in-the-crotch Adult Onesies a.k.a. bodysuits – who can argue with the genius of Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder? Okay, you can argue but you’ll end up either shooting yourself or killed in a tragic 1940’s car accident where you sigh, “hold me darlin’ just a little while” right before you expire, virgin kiss still warm on your lips. Nothing says romance like those two men.
Second to music, the phenomenon most responsible for warping my developing mind was the After School Special. Don’t even pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Over the years I’ve discovered that each person has a personal fave that encouraged them to have random nightmares for years afterwards. For me, that one was Little Miss Perfect, a show about a girl who copes with her parents’ expectations and her own perfectionism by becoming bulimic. At least, I’m pretty sure it was this one – there were so many ASS’s (wow – was that acronym intentional?) about eating disorders that I sometimes get them confused.
That Was Then
Anyhow, I first saw it in Middle School Health Class and was left with two lasting images: a) the girl hiding her vomit in glass jars in her closet (for reals? Wouldn’t you run out of room/jars pretty darn quick? Weren’t toilets invented for the very purpose of NOT having to put one’s bodily fluids into jars?) and b) how her esophagus literally exploded and she died at the end. SHE DIED, people, of a an esophagus that was so enraged at its mistreatment that it ripped through her throat like so many aliens and disgorged a stomach full of ho-hos and twinkies and Big Macs all over the hospital stretcher while two handsome EMTs clucked disapprovingly (at her banana clip, I imagine now). My friends hid their eyes. I was mesmerized. You should have seen us in the cafeteria that next lunch hour.
Never before had I really paid attention to how my friends ate but suddenly we were all hyperaware that there were rules to eating and “signs” we should be watching for and honestly didn’t the show make it seem so disgusting it was almost glamorous in a canning-jar kind of way? Some of my friends went on to take that Special as a do-it-yourself guide to all things eating disordered. Others would just go on to hide their ding-dong wrappers under tissue paper in the waste basket for years and never really realize it was weird until a significant other asked them why they were burying their refuse and if they had a squirrel fetish they wanted to talk about.
This Is Now
So you will understand how I was taken right back to that place by Brian’s comment on my Functional Anorexia post:
I was at a Youth Conference last week with 25 kids 14-18yrs old. We had spaghetti/salad/rolls one night and many of the girls did not even touch it. The woman in charge over the girls grew up on a ranch in a small Colorado town and commented to me that she doesn’t understand why the girls don’t eat. She said when she was their age, when she was hungry, she ate. She then told me the next day that the girls ate every scrap of junk food/snacks we brought up for the nighttime. On the other 4th hand, the guys ate heartily, and did not even touch the nighttime snacks. But then again I hope the girls didn’t pass gas all night long either.
It’s like my scrawny 11-yr old daughter. She picks at her dinner and eats maybe 3 “mandatory” bites. And then raids the pantry all-night for chocolate chips, and potato chips, and cereal. And then complains that she’s fat.
Girls eat weird. We have strange habits when we eat with other girls. When we eat in front of men. Or in front of strangers. Or even by ourselves.
I see it in my current and former female students. This strange dance of abstaining righteously from food when it is served and then later binging in private when it is hoarded. As every grown woman (hopefully) knows, this sets up a terrible dynamic, both in regards to your mental state and your blood sugar. You starve in a fit of self-hate or self-righteousness and then pig out later on even worse foods because you are so hungry. It’s a terrible cycle.
How many times have I watched the teenage girls in the cafeteria pick half-heartedly at salads and then down a family-size bag of Starbursts at the late night study group? How many times have we as adults, ate perfectly pea-sized portions at a cocktail party (one nibble of eclair, two bites of broccoli and a lick of cheese quiche) and then gone home to eat an entire half gallon of freezer burned ice cream because we felt deprived?
I’ll admit it: I’ve totally done this. Probably more times than I’d like to admit. Do you eat food in secret rather than in front of people? What kinds of foods do you prefer to eat alone? Do you think this is disordered eating or just par for the course?
This post sound familiar? Friday’s are Greatest Hits Day here at the GFE. This post originally ran in April 2008.
Tsk! I must chide thee, foolish Charlotte.
"Am I a secret eater?"
Do you think I will admit a secret? Out loud? To all your untold myriad viewers?
Is it from you that I heard about the book What We Eat When We Eat Alone? I didn't finish it (I'm not finishing any books these days–it's me, not them), but it's an interesting topic and it seems like it might be right up your alley.
i definitely think it's really sad that girls feel the pressure to not eat around others. i don't fall into the secret eating category but i do feel like i shouldn't be eating as much as i do when i'm in the dining hall. i know consciously that my friends don't really care but i still feel the pressure
I have to admit, I've hidden a McDonalds bag at the bottom of the trash can a time or two. I don't know why, as I'm the only one who cares what I eat.
P.S. I miss the 90s. I miss flannel and grunge. I miss the days when Jerod Leto was a hottie on My So Called Life instead of a frontman for 30 Seconds to Mars.
I think that this is such a great post. Cause it's so true. I eat now. I have never had a problem eating in front of men before. However, I totally know what you mean about going to a party and not wanting to 'stuff your face', having a glass of wine (or two) and then going home to the 'freezer burnt ice cream'.
I think what it really shows is that we are raising a whole entire generation of women who do not have a healthy relationship with food. It's abusive, hidden, dangerous and depriving.
As always Im the odd one 🙂
I tend to prefer to eat with people (if by people you mean HUSBAND which I do. In that Im thinking about how crazy I make him that I will frequently wait for him for dinner only having a small snack while I wait even when he's home late late. I like the companionship of the meal…the PRIMARY FOOD more than the food food that I get when alone) but when I eat alone its no different than with others.
HUH.
holy muddled and run on sentences huh?
and yes.
Im in.
will email you.
if you arent horrified so by these sentences.
🙂
yeah~ it's something natural to girls to behave that way? I used to be like that… but now that I live alone and have no more eating issues, i really prefer meals over snacks and it satisfies me more.
I totally prefer to eat alone. At work I am so happy when I go to the break room for lunch and I have it to myself. I don't like people asking me what I am eating (b/c they usually think it's weird b/c it's healthy). I am married and I don't mind eating in front of my husband but he does keep me from snacking. If he's not eating then I don't want to eat. Last night he was at a friends and I ate dinner alone and them 1/2 a bag of chex mix. That would not have happened if he'd been home.
Because my mother was the keeper of the key to the lock on the cupboard that held the food behind it, of course, my sister and I became secret eaters though it was no secret once our asses stopped fitting into chairs. And last year she had weight loss surgery. Nope, no secrets over here.
I have no problem eating in front of others but also eat junk when I am alone and not happy – I always hide the evidence. I am hiding it mostly from my husband as I want to avoid his comments about how I know it is bad for me and I complain about wanting to lose those last 5 pounds. It only started a few years ago and boy do I wish I could stop it as it is really picked up big time at the moment.
I do recall the girls in high school that ate almost nothing during lunch but I was not one of them – I ate what I wanted, stayed 99 pounds with no hips what so ever and spent most of my time in math club, band or theater – wow – I was a total geek!
Oooo this makes me feel so much better about how I'm always stuffing my face at parties! 🙂 I was always wondering why I was three times hungrier than all the other girls every time we got together…but now I know that I don't have some monstrous appetite and that it's all a big secret I wasn't privy to.
I had always assumed that it was because I ran a lot!
Oh, I'm a secret eater, all right! It is DEFINITELY disordered, and the fact that it's so widespread is pretty sad.
(BTW, when I was in college, I had a small, bi**y role in an After School Special!)
I remember a similar experience when they showed For the Love of Nancy on TV in my health class… and I thought Tracy Gold was beautiful, and couldn't understand why people kept saying she looked sick. It was more inspiration to me than it ever was a deterrent towards eating disordered behavior.
And yes, I've tried to hide the evidence of my binges, or even any food that I thought other people might think badly of me for eating, for one reason or another. It's sad that so many of us have such a twisted relationship with food.
I'm a little older, and have heard the after school special referenced a lot (mostly on teen dramas attempting to be snarky) but don't remember them actually being on tv afterschool.
That said, I do remember watching a movie about anorexia in 6th grade health class. The movie was supposed to scare us away (I remember one recovered girl saying she wouldn't wish anorexia on her worst enemy). But really I just remember the movie glamorizing the disease. I had just started those behaviors the summer before, and to me, it did nothing but fascinate me. I was jealous of the girls' control and weight. It was like a how-to guide.
ahhh, I mean younger! lol. I'm younger than you Charlotte – I think the after school specials were before my time.
i totally do this. i am working on it, but i have done it a lot in the past, especially when i was married. 🙁
I'm pretty open about the mass quantities of food I eat, but unless I'm eating with just my husband, I'm a secret dessert eater. Most people don't order dessert when they go out to eat, but I always want it. I try to be ladylike and say I'm stuffed. But then I end up chowing down on cookies at home. If I'm eating dinner with my husband alone, then I can order dessert.
Oh, and thanks for the trip down memory lane. I heart My So Called Life.
The only secret eating I do is when I have something that I don't want to share with my kids.
🙂
I used to have a real problem with secret eating (secret binge eating)-especially in college when I was at my lowest weight. Eventually secret eating got out of control and I gained 50 lbs. Since then, I've learned when to recognize when I'm about to eat because of emotional reasons and have gotten the problem under control. I used to think the problem began when I was in college, but looking back, even as a child, I'd always steal cookies from the cookie jar and sneak off to my room to eat them.
A big part of secret eating goes back to your point that girls' and women's eating habits are scrutinized waaaaay too much.
Good dispatch and this post helped me alot in my college assignement. Thank you as your information.
I used to LOVE the afterschool specials especially the one with Jennifer Jason Leigh as an anorexic.
I have to say I have no problem eating in front of people. There are some things like ribs or lobster that I prefer to eat alone because I am a messy eater, and I feel that ribs cannot be properly enjoyed unless they are eaten messily with finger licking.
I was totally a secret eater for MANY years. If people knew what i was eating, ok,inhaling, i think they would have been shocked and appalled. it was shameful. now that i'm in recovery (a little over 2 years binge-free), i am happy to eat in front of anyone, the secret eatng years are behind me. wow, that felt good to say!
From my professional experience, people look like what they do, whether in the open or, as you say, in secret. I wish it wasn't so important for some to maintain what ever they are trying to maintain, but I guess it is. When they start the "I eat like a bird," thing, and look like that butterball just before Thanksgiving, I can only sigh. Every one has the right to peacefully live the life they choose.
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I totally remember the vomit-in-glass-jars girl! How about the high school student who snorted PCP and thought she could fly, so she jumped out the window and plummeted to her death. Thank God for THAT Just Say No video…I can honestly say I never fell into angel dust, inlike the six other people in the world who did.
I remember the concept and name of After School Specials but I don't remember any one in particular. I don't remember anything about them!? I'm kind of glad too b/c it sounds like they didn't always have the intended result.
I currently eat whatever I wish in plain view of anyone. When I was lean, I ate very lean but then got hungry again, so ate again, so it might have seemed like I was being virtuous then going home and eating in secret, but the truth is that I was just still dang hungry! Now I eat to where I'm comfortably full so there is no room for more food when I get home.
I remember a grown woman friend telling me that she eats lean (like I did) then comes home and sneaks a bowl of fiber one cereal into the bathroom where she scarfed it down so that her husband couldn't see her. So sad. Sounds like it's pretty common.