It struck me, as I walked around the aisles of the grocery store today, just now "normal" it was to diet. Yes, this has occurred to me before, but there's almost an unwritten assumption that you're trying to lose weight. Marshmallows have these big labels saying "Naturally Fat Free!" As anything that is 100% sugar typically is. All sorts of sweets and snacks are somehow supposed to be good for you (or at least cause less guilt) because they have "whole grains."

Yes, your diet- meaning typical daily intake of food- is intricately related to health. Absolutely. The consumption of omega-3 fatty acids can help with depression. When I don't eat enough fats, I can't absorb Vitamin K, a clotting factor, and I have these disgusting bruises all up and down my shins. And so on. This isn't exactly newsbreaking. What is bizarre is the almost complete lack of emphasis on the dangers of dieting.

The whole model/anorexia debate, as played out, ironically enough, on the cover of People magazine, is good in that it draws attention to the dangers of anorexia and bulimia, but not always so good in that all the chips aren't on the table. Models, modelling, and looking at models do not cause anorexia or bulimia. Eating disorders are not a diet gone a little too far. The link isn't causal.

The dangers of ultra-skinny models go beyond just triggering eating disorders. It makes the tell-tale behaviors (eating low fat, no fat, no cal foods, binge eating, overexercising, purging) seem quite standard and ordinary. If a young teen says that he or she is going on a diet, no one will likely bat an eyelash. It might even be written off as an obsession over Kate Moss. In my office, everyone is dieting. Together. It is more odd that I am not than that I am. A young teenage girl is much more likely to be at a more advanced stage of her eating disorder upon diagnosis because it all seems so freaking normal.

I was lucky. My rapid weight loss was so absurd, so seemingly unprovoked, that my mom picked up on it quickly. By then, of course, I had already dropped 10 pounds and malnutrition had thoroughly set in. Even then, it gave Ed much more ammunition to use to lull me and my loved ones into thinking that everything was normal, everything was fine.

Duh. Doesn't everyone want to lose weight? I'm on a diet, I'm just eating healthy, exercise makes me feel great (in the 100 degree Atlanta heat in the middle of the day for an hour and a half). No one noticed. In fact, I was solicited for advice. Two days before I was found to have a pulse of 44 and a blood pressure that was completely undetectable.

So this whole model thing goes quite beyond just triggering eating disorders. It can then sustain them. Normalize them. Make anorexia (at least on a moderate level) seem somehow enviable.

It's hard not to look for the low fat options. I feel guilty when I don't buy them, when I have to ask for a larger size in the dressing room. Tell me that these standards are unhealthy all you want, but they're still standards. They're ingrained upon me. I have to make a conscious effort, every hour of every day, in order to fight these things.

There's a part of me that would like to run out and change the world, but all I want to do anymore is live in it and be accepted no matter how large and untoned my butt is, or how odd my tastes in clothes, books, and music might be.

Really that's all.