To those who do not know, the month of February is National Eating Disorder Awareness month. In the past I have done a lot of blogs, videos, Facebook status updates, and used any other outlet to spread awareness about eating disorders and how difficult it is to get treatment paid for and overcome the disease. I've spoken about how the number on the scale doesn't represent the severity of the illness, how a person who looks okay on the outside could be dying on the inside. I've written about how not eating, purging, binging, over exercise, and other behaviors someone with an ED uses are the symptoms of a much deeper problem. This year I've spent most of the month in the hospital recovering from a major surgery, unsure if I had it in me to even write anything at all until the most horrific type of anorexia walked into my hospital room behind her mommy. I was face to face with a child anorexic.
     I have known this little girl almost her whole life, her mom and I have been close friends for years, seeing each other through some very terrible times. For as long as I have known this child she has always been so full of life and smiles. My favorite memoires of her are when she was first toddling around in her little sun dresses, finding joy in the smallest things a sunny day can offer us. She was never really fussy, always content to go on adventures with her mother and me. In her world she didn't see the tragedy all around, she thought she was beautiful in two different shoes, mismatched clothes, and a princess tiara. She did all of this despite being sick with epilepsy, despite being hospitalized and feeling yucky all the time, and it was all with a smile and never a pity party. When I saw her the other day there was no more spark, no more pure smile, and my heart broke. The healthy seven year old I had seen only months before was now bones. How does a seven year old learn to hate her own body, learn to be afraid of gaining weight, and even learn calories?
     It was just before the schools broke for Thanksgiving break when my friend went to pick up her daughter just like every other day expecting to find her waiting with excitement to tell her mommy about her day. What she found instead was her little girl sobbing because a little boy, who had been her best friend/lunch buddy had told her he could no longer have lunch with her or be her friend because she was too fat, and that boys weren't suppose to hang out with fat girls. This little boy is another seven year old, he had to learn that fat=bad from somewhere, and he learned it from our society's obsession on weight, a war on obesity that allows schools to preach at the top of their lungs about good and bad food, to teach kids that the number on the scale is what defines health, which is totally untrue, and that being fat is the most horrible thing you can be.