This Just In: Bigger is Better

Nothing more than myself will ever be promised to me and that amounts to nothing if I don't make something of myself. —Simone de Beauvoir

If you're reading this, you probably know what it's like to have an eating disorder. I don't have to tell you how it sneaks up on you slowly, sort of like love. One day you care a little bit. The next day you care a little more, until one afternoon you find yourself completely smitten with the idea of going to bed with an empty stomach.

I don't have to remind you that, unlike love, an eating disorder doesn't give back much. It takes—from your relationships, your goals, and your free time. An eating disorder makes it difficult and then impossible to watch a movie or read a book without contemplating your next meal or whether you're thinner than the people on the screen. It dwarfs your concern for others, your ability to care for them, your sensitivity to your own needs, and your capacity to be honest (since you have to lie about when and how much you've eaten).

Unfortunately, the normalcy of weight-obsession these days can make it tough to backtrack once you've started down the path of calorie-counting. A mother of teenagers recently told me that among her daughter's friends, zero is the new "size to be." Considering the culture, it is no real wonder that young women are aspiring toward, literally, nothingness. Discovering a way to feel sane—in your cushioned, functional, sometimes jiggly, dimpled skin—requires almost superwoman power.

You can tap into this power and become supernaturally, abnormally sane. Imagine taking pride in something truly worthwhile. Imagine craving the sensation of achievement rather than the image. Recall the little girl you were before you began working to eliminate the natural roundness of your belly and imagine rediscovering her joy at life. What if you could sit with loneliness and fear and wait it out, and you could accept love from someone who cares for you, no matter how you look.

I want these things for you because when you allow yourself to think in a more expansive way—bigger—you will start to sense something weird happening to your body (and mind, spirit, and every niche and cranny). It feels sort of like that tingly feeling you get after you've lain on one of your limbs all night and it slowly regains mobility. Coffee and chocolate taste better. People are funnier. You get to let out your breath, your secrets, and you taste a kind of confidence.

You will be amazed how this power you didn't know was inside you comes bubbling—maybe even spewing—all over the place after you've made just one tough decision and sat with the discomfort of it. Make two and you're a rock star; make three and it's your turn to dispense the advice.

At target "zero," I'm willing to wager that the reward is pretty barren. Bigger is where the action is, where the good stuff is happening, where women with healthy appetites are cutting wider swaths through our world. You can be—you are—one of those women. Dust her off. What does she have to say?