According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (ANAD), eating disorders effect up to 24,000,000 men, women and children of all ages.

Today, we’d like to welcome Bethany, an MGF reader who bravely came forward to share the origin of her lifelong struggle with eating disorders. Because her story is extremely personal and honest, we’ve changed her name for her privacy.

~Jessi~

No one is certain what causes an individual to suffer from an eating disorder such as anorexia, bulimia, compulsive overeating, etc. There are many types of eating disorders that people struggle with every day. Some theorize that there are many who have a predisposition to developing eating disorders due to genetics, and many others who believe that eating disorders are born from traumatic life experiences.

I’m not certain whether it’s one or the other, because I’m no expert, but what I can tell you is what it’s like for me as someone who has struggled constantly with my weight due to my eating disorders. I’ve struggled with this for over 18 years, and for me it’s still a fight to keep it under control.

My struggle began far before my eating disorder took over. I was born into an extremely abusive home, where my siblings and I were left alone for days and sometimes even weeks at a time with no food. We were forced to live off of sugar water and garbage to survive–basically whatever we could find. When my grandmother would bring food for us, or our parents actually were there and bought groceries to cook, we would eat to the point of excess because we never knew when our next meal was going to come.

When school was in session, we were guaranteed at least one meal because we were on a free lunch program, but for me, school was a mixed blessing. Even though I was able to eat at least once a day, I was constantly teased because I was chunky from living off of sugar water and whatever else I could get my hands on between actual meals. Being teased didn’t stop with just my peers at school, but continued on with my parents when they would actually grace us with their presence between alcohol and drug binges. Needless to say, that my self-esteem was nonexistent, and by the time I reached the seventh grade, I couldn’t cope with the struggles I was faced with and something inside me just broke.

It was that year that I decided I couldn’t stand being teased by family and peers any longer, so I took on what I thought was nothing more than a strict diet. I wanted to lose any excess pounds and fast. I rarely ate, and I exercised three hours a day. I was so pleased with how quickly I lost the extra weight that I became hooked. At five foot two, I was able to get down to one hundred pounds or, many times throughout my life, less than that.

The problem I faced, besides becoming addicted to anorexia and never thinking I was thin enough–no matter how thin I became, was that eventually I would give into my urges to binge eat, causing my weight to constantly fluctuate throughout my lifetime.

In my late teens to mid-twenties I was even able to get so small that my waist was always around twenty-five inches with bones showing. My friends became concerned about me because they thought I looked sickly, I was always cold, and my uterus started to hemorrhage. Yet, despite all my issues, I felt fat even at my smallest.

It wasn’t until the birth of my second child that I really started to put on weight. I went through a period of extreme depression and went up to 145 pounds and then, for longer periods of time, almost 200 because I began binge eating to cope with what I was dealing with on the inside. On the inside, I felt lost, like a part of me was dead. I realize now that my issues with food stem from my hurt over such a broken and painful childhood.

My eating disorder has become more than just my past. It has been part of my life for many years, and learning to deal with it in order to live a better life on a daily basis is constant struggle.

Please join us tomorrow when Bethany tells us what it’s like to live with an eating disorder on a day to day basis.

Eating disorders are serious and can have deadly consequences. If you or someone you know is suffering from an eating disorder, there is help available. Please talk to your doctor, confide in someone you trust who will help you find assistance or contact the National Eating Disorders Association at 1(800)931-2237.

Photo: flickr.com/photos/caseywest/366618202