Caroline Dooner

I was a binge eater for the first 24 years of my life. As far back as I can remember, I would binge on food. My mom was a health nut and very judgmental about junk, and I wanted Goldfish, goddamnit! I felt like all that almond butter was stopping me from having a full childhood. And so I did my best to get in as many Cheez-Its and Fruit Loops and Snickers when I could.

But here is the secret I've learned from years of misery and failure: Food IS naturally comforting to us. And that is perfectly fine.

Food, TV, alcohol, exercise, rest, intimacy, and sex, are all perfectly acceptable, natural ways that we humans get comfort.

I teach people how to eat normally after dieting. And across the board, the people I work with all describe themselves as “type A personalities” or “perfectionists.”

So what’s the difference between dieting and eating disorders? Not much. It all depends on how obsessive you are with it, and how much mental and emotional space it takes up in our minds. Like most things, eating disorders exist on a spectrum.

Our culture has decided that gaining weight is the worst thing ever. And we have gotten the message in a multitude of sneaky or super blatant ways.

Do you feel like you have an addiction to food? Do you think about it all the time? Fixate on it? Crave it constantly? Feel like you have no control once you start? Do you just eat and eat and eat until you are stuffed and miserable?

And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but people are really resistant to movements that aim to inspire people to drop the fight against weight. There are lots of fat-haters.

We haven’t quite escaped the influence of the Puritans yet...We still tend to regard our bodies, our eating, our desires, and anything else of this earth as “bad,” “weak,” or “sinful.”

These are two concepts that I think we are all a little confused about. Even writing on this topic for four years, it’s taken me time to master explaining the difference between emotional eating and bingeing. We often use those two terms as if they’re interchangeable. But they’re absolutely not the same thing!

For years I felt ashamed for having a body. Embarrassed to have big boobs. Embarrassed to be anything but tiny and perfect. Embarrassed to be anything bigger than a dainty wisp of air. I felt like taking up physical space in this world was both vulnerable and too powerful.