The Things We Learn Without Being Told

I used to think my eating disorder started in middle school.

That’s when I began skipping breakfast and lunch. I thought that was the beginning of my story.

Looking back now, I don’t think it was.

I think my story started years before I ever skipped a meal.

Growing up, many of the women around me were almost always trying to lose weight. Dieting wasn’t something that happened once in a while—it was woven into everyday life. Conversations about food often centered around eating less, avoiding certain foods, or feeling guilty after eating something considered “bad.”

Bodies were talked about just as often.

Someone who had lost weight was praised.

Someone who had gained weight became a topic of conversation.

Without anyone intentionally teaching me, I began learning what I thought it meant to be a woman.

That your body was something to manage.

Something to improve.

Something people noticed before they noticed you.

I also knew my body looked different than some of the people around me. I was shorter and naturally had a curvier build. Whether anyone intended it or not, I became aware of those differences at a young age. I started comparing myself long before I knew what comparison could do.

At the time, none of this felt unusual.

It was normal.

I didn’t know there was another way to think about food or bodies because this was the world I had always known.

Looking back now, I don’t believe anyone around me wanted me to develop an eating disorder. I don’t think they knew the messages I was absorbing. Many of the women I admired had grown up in a world that taught them the same things. They were carrying beliefs they had inherited long before I was born.

Without realizing it, I inherited those beliefs too.

I slowly began believing that if I could change my body, maybe I would feel more confident.

Maybe I’d feel more accepted.

Maybe I’d finally feel enough.

I didn’t know it then, but I had already started measuring my worth by something that was never meant to define it.

No one handed me an eating disorder.

It grew quietly.

In conversations.

In comparisons.

In compliments about shrinking.

In the silence after gaining weight.

Those moments seemed so small on their own that I never questioned them.

But years later, I would realize they had been planting seeds all along.