One of my good friends was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and is now undergoing chemo.  I'm not exactly sure how the whole "shoe" theme got started (I think she and another one of her friends had an identical pair of loafers that they both wore the first day of chemo), but it's taken off.  We all wear our loafers on her chemo day to show our solidarity.

I don't know if ballet flats count as a proper pair of loafers, but they're the closest thing I've got.  I also don't think this is an actual chemo day, but I didn't get around to taking the damn picture until now.

With that said:

I love you, Charlotte.

My best friend L is visiting me for the weekend.  She's never seen my new place and she needed a weekend away, so I invited her down.  We've had a nice time thus far--she got to meet J, and we went out for dinner at a local Indian restaurant.  She'll be here through tomorrow.

It's been really nice to get to spend time with her, and just relax and talk.  But having anyone come to visit, especially when coming off of more ED struggles, is tough.  It's not just the food thing as it is having to share my space with someone and having my usual routines disrupted.  I love having L here, so that's not the issue.  But all of a sudden, there's someone else in my space, and I have all of these little quirky habits that don't always mesh well with visitors.

My learning flexibility is a good thing. Yet it's still hard for me to adjust to new things.  {{Wait, someone with anorexia having trouble with change? That doesn't sound right...}}

I'm mostly used to doing my own thing on my own time. To being in charge of the TV remote.  It's not the easiest thing to adjust.  At the same time, it's something I know I need to do.  I get way too easily attached to my routines and rituals.  It's part of my personality.  That chair I sit in on the first day of class? That's the same chair I'll use for the rest of the year.  Most of the time, these habits are pretty harmless.  After all, exactly where I sit in class probably didn't have that much of an effect on my learning.  But the problem is that I get almost unspeakably anxious when I have to sit in a different chair.

Granted, I have plenty of habits, rituals, and compulsions that are harmful in and of themselves (hand-washing, cleaning, that whole eating disorder thing).  For the majority of my habits, though, it's the thought of changing them that causes all hell to break loose.  It's that I find them too meaningful and perhaps too helpful.  So when things get changed, I tend to find it difficult.

I'm actually doing okay food-wise today.  I've been eating what I need to, if not always at the exact right time.  That structure is probably what is saving me right now.  That and friends and good times and yarn.

Many of my recovery milestones thus far have been directly related to food/weight.  Things like eliminating my list of fear foods, not purging for a year and a half (and counting!), reaching my target weight and staying there.  Not that these aren't huge milestones, but they were also very concrete things.  I can do concrete goals very well, but more nebulous goals (increase flexibility! meet new friends!) are much more difficult.  I can't break them down into little steps.

One of the things I worked on a lot with TNT and have started to do with Dr. H is making friends.  I have been living here for a bit over a year, and I really didn't have any friends.  If I wanted to do something on a Friday night, I asked my parents.  There wasn't someone for me to call.

A few months ago, I joined a book club on meetup.com because I love reading, and it seemed like the perfect fit.  I lucked out, as the people there are really cool, really nice, and really smart.  My kind of people.  I could discuss politics without feeling the need to censor myself.  They were very accepting.  January's meeting was last weekend, and I went and had a very nice time.  I brought some killer scones (Banana Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip). The hostess made decaf coffee for me, since last time I turned the regular coffee down lest I be up all night, which I thought was the sweetest thing ever.

I stayed around a bit after to help clean up and to spend more quality time with their pup.  As I did, the host, hostess, and one other person began talking about their weekly jam sessions.  Apparently, every week, a bunch of them get together with their stringed instruments and just play music. It had come up during the group that I play piano and sing, and so they invited me to come.

As I was driving home, I realized: I finally have friends now.  I haven't had that in ages.  It occurred to me that they might be inviting me out of pity or guilt (they were talking about this music thing and I was right there next to them), an idea I can't totally shake.  But I also know that they genuinely seem to like me, and they aren't the type to throw out a pity invite.

It feels...really good.  I have a friend in real life, and I have online friends, but I honestly don't remember what it's like to have a group of people to actually do things with.  It's all very new to me.

My friend Charlotte had posted about how far her daughter had come in her fight against anorexia over the past year.  In an email to me, she asked me to post this on my blog:

This time last year (3rd November, 2009), my daughter's anorexia had changed my warm, funny bright loving daughter into a cobra with PMS, my other daughter was crying hysterically, my husband was as angry as a hungry grizzly and I have never felt so hopeless and helpless in the whole of my life. So, taking courage in both hands and laying aside my uptight English reserve, I posted on the ATDT forum asking for help.


And through them, I found Carrie.

A year on, a lot has changed. My warm, funny, bright, loving daughter is back. My other daughter only cries when she gets moisturiser in her eyes. My husband is back to his habitual horizontal position and I feel empowered and useful.

And, I still have Carrie.

We talked about how far we have come in a year and for both us, looking back, has been cathartic and hopeful.
 
I feel like I've known Charlotte for so much longer than a year.  She has truly become a dear friend.
 
And yet, looking back over this past year, I realize how far I've come.  I've actually embraced the concept of recovery, not just to get my parents off my back or to make my therapist happy.  There are still parts of recovery I hate, but I'm starting to really accept them.  I do still miss the eating disorder at times, but I also have other times when it's not at the forefront of my mind.
 
If you would have asked me last year what I would be doing in November 2010, I wouldn't have told you that I would be trying to buy a condo and working full-time as a freelance writer.  That I would actually be showing signs of success in my career.  To be honest, back then I wasn't really thinking of the future.  The future consisted of trying to weasel out of the next meal or next snack.  It consisted of dreaming and hoping and wishing.  Yeah, it would be nice to kick this ED to the curb, but it would also be nice if pigs would fly and my coffee cup magically refilled itself.  That didn't mean it was going to happen anytime soon.
 
My life isn't what I anticipated it would be before I got ill.  I didn't expect to be still living with my parents at age 30.  I didn't expect to have more health problems than I care to count and know that padded rooms on psych wards actually exist.
 
Yet time passes and things get better.  Until I got into this conversation with Charlotte, I didn't realize just how much progress I have made.  I am, by no means, totally recovered.  I still struggle with ED thoughts, but I find it getting so much easier to keep the behaviors in check.  Thinking of a life beyond the ED isn't just a pipe dream anymore.

It's true that I go to the NEDA conferences every year to stay on top of the latest research and findings, but after so many years of going, the main draw for me is to see all of my friends.  Many of them, I've met before, but this year was especially nice because I got to meet so many new people.

It's odd, meeting people you've only known over the internet, people who know more about you than 90% of your "real life" friends.  Yet I couldn't pick some of these people out of a police lineup.  It was just lovely to be able to put names and faces together after (sometimes) years of online correspondence.  I'm sitting in the lobby of my hotel next to the lovely Melissa of Finding Melissa.  I spent a lot of time with Laura and the other moms of Around the Dinner Table--you know who you are!  My mom and I got to meet Marcella, who first met my mom back in 2001, shortly after I was first diagnosed.  They had been friends for years but never got to meet.

I also got to be with the ED recovery Twitteratti, which included Kendra, Rachel, Jenn, Claire, and Julie (among others).  I had more than a few laughs with Susan Ringwood of B-EAT and her charming husband and Becky Henry of the Hope Network.  I also saw David again, and finally met Sarah Ravin in person.

It was a lovely time, being with everyone.  I truly felt at ease and comfortable in my own skin, even in some overwhelming and demanding social situations which doesn't happen very often!  It was nice to have my blog and all of the work I've done here over the years to really get some good recognition.  I didn't need it, and I would have been fine without it, but it's always gratifying to know that my work has impacted others.

I fly back to Virginia tomorrow, and this will be the last time I see a lot of these people until the AED conference in Miami next April (if my proposal is accepted) or next year's NEDA conference in Los Angeles.

(Sorry if I forgot to mention anyone- my brain is pretty much frazzled right now!)

The issue of dating and relationships keeps coming up in therapy for me, and to be honest it's rather relevant. I still don't have any friends down here, outside of the people I work with. And although many of my coworkers are nice and fun while at work, they're not exactly the kind of people I see myself being good friends with (ie, I don't do the beer and marijuana thing for entertainment).

So the fact that I've been living here for about 9 months and still haven't met anyone--romantic or otherwise--spurred TNT into pushing me into trying a variety of options, like signing up for a bellydance class through community ed and, yes, thinking about dating.

Seeing as my dilemma is that I don't even have the foggiest clue of where to meet someone because I don't know anyone and I do NOT do the bar scene, the logical next step (according to TNT) was doing a dating website. Thankfully, my older brother has taken the first step in that regards as he met his wife online, though it wasn't a dating website. I did it once before and the experience wasn't the best, although I was aware enough at the time that it had nothing to do with the guys and everything to do with the fact that I was deep in the ED. And pretty much unilaterally refusing to do anything with food made me a pretty awful date.*

My assignment this week was to sign up for a dating site.** I'm not going to say which one (if you're really curious, you can email me!) for privacy reasons, nor is my profile up yet. I started filling it out, and one of the categories is what you're looking for and why you're here. I said because I was new to the area, etc, and I also figured that writing "My therapist is making me" wouldn't exactly be an encouragement to people. Or at least, the people I potentially want to attract.

This brings up a whole host of issues, the biggest of which is the fact that I don't understand why anyone would date me anyway. It's this core self-belief that, basically, I suck. I know I'm not stupid, I know I'm not totally inept at writing, but the only thing I ever felt confidence in was my ability to be anorexic. Now that my anorexia is in the past tense and I consider my illness (mostly) in remission, I'm back to the old "I suck" mantras.

TNT wanted me to start dating to basically tell the "I suck" mantras to go, well, suck it. That I'm never going to believe that I'm a datable person until I start dating.

So here goes.

*This didn't, however, stop me from going even deeper into the ED because the problem was (obviously!) I needed to weigh less for someone to be attracted to me.

**Actually, it was my assignment last week, but I put it off because of a freelance editing job from hell. Facebook friends, you know what I'm talking about.

A few minutes ago, I got this update from my friend Harriet Brown, author of the upcoming book Brave Girl Eating.

"The Good Morning America appearance was canceled after I refused to allow photos of my daughter at her sickest appear onscreen. Makes me ashamed to be a journalist."

Because there's no other way to talk about eating disorders and treatment and recovery than showing pictures of emaciated children...right?

Save the voyeurism for bad reality TV shows. We don't need it to show how devastating an eating disorder can be.

It's GMA's loss, really. The appearance would have been a great opportunity to educate people and dispel myths about eating disorders. And now, because of a producer's stupidity, that opportunity is lost.

Will people ever learn?

I was in the middle of writing another post when I got the ever-appreciated ding that a friend had sent me a message via Facebook chat. I met this friend (let's call her N. to keep her anonymous) in the writing program I was in. We shared a room at a conference and generally got along splendidly because of some similarities in our pasts. Both of us had our share of mental health issues and had spent time in psychiatric units. We discussed our various medications with no small amount of glee. And we both found ourselves struggling after graduation, both of us having difficulty finding our way in the world. We kept in vague touch, although neither knew the full story of what happened with the other person.

So N. asked how I was doing, and I decided to come clean with the story of my relapse and what I was up to now, and I was relieved to hear what kind of support I got. It was so nice to just share what had been going through my mind, and how I felt like our program screw up because of all my issues. And N. said, basically, no, I couldn't be the program screw up because that job was hers. I was just about to assure her that this was one job she was safe resigning from when I had to laugh. It was like those interminable conversations with other people at treatment, as to who was the fattest. And everyone always insisted it was them no matter how often the other girls said that no, they were the fattest ones there. It was a losing argument, and no one ever had an accurate idea of their true shape and size and the end of the discussion, but we always persisted on having them anyways.

Still, it was reassuring to know that someone else was floundering in life and thinking they were a failure and wondering how they were going to be a successful writer when all they could see was this big black wall of FAILURE sitting in front of them.

As I was chatting with N., I was reminded of a visit our program got by someone who had graduated several years previously. She told us of how much of her early career could be described in one word: flailing. All of us in the program laughed nervously, knowing that this experience was waiting for us, too.

And it was. It really, really was.

So I reminded N. about this quote, and I told her: Maybe we're not failing. Maybe we're just flailing.

She agreed and the conversation drifted, as conversations tend to do. We eventually started talking about our current writing projects, me with my freelance projects and her with her novel. Then N. said something rather profound:

Just sitting down to write every day is an act of amazing courage on my part.

I had to agree.

It's hard for me to express to other people just how much courage I have to muster up to get through the day, how much energy it takes to look "normal" sometimes. Sometimes getting out of bed is an amazing act of courage. Eating sure is.

We all have things--courageous things--that we do every single day. Just because they're ordinary doesn't make them any less courageous.

What's your "amazing act of courage"?

One of my friends was having a really bad day today, and sent me an email. I didn't really know how to provide email support, so I gave her a call. We talked for about 15 minutes, and I think I helped her feel at least a little bit better. She thanked me many times for calling, and I said I was glad to.

I'm not saying this because I want a pat on the back, or even that I feel that other people need to know how I occupied 15 minutes of my day.

I'm saying this because it's such a normal thing to do: be there for a friend. It's something I wouldn't have done when I was deep into the eating disorder because I wouldn't have had the energy, and I would have been afraid that my friend would end up suggesting we go out for dinner or something. It would have been much easier to write back and say "I'm sorry life sucks right now. Let me know if I can help." Which is fine, but I know when I'm drowning in anxiety and depression, a friendly voice can really help anchor me.

We used to be best friends until the usual time and distance separated us. In the past year or so, we've once again been closer geographically and have reconnected over numerous shared interests. I'm not totally positive why she wrote me, but I'm flattered that she did, and I'm glad the ED is out of my life enough that I was able to respond as a good friend and not a caring, starving anorexic.

I read a thought-provoking piece in the NY Times Magazine called "Are your friends making you fat?" I've been finding the idea of networks and social networks both interesting and compelling, and I wrote about it quite a bit at my job this spring. Information and infectious diseases do flow through networks of people. The math to determine exactly how they spread, and at what rate, is rather atrocious but also really fun. (I have an MPH in epidemiology- it's sort of a career hazard.)

Where I first learned this idea was in a seminar course on STDs, and a study of a syphilis outbreak in Baltimore in the 1980s. Basically, researchers used known patterns of drug use since syphilis was typically transmitted during a sex for drugs exchange. People might not always remember their partners, but they typically remembered where they got high. With this information, healthcare workers could narrow down the number of people who needed testing. The problem with translating these types of studies into non-infectious diseases is this: networks don't tell us whether the disease is a virus or bacteria, or even how the disease is transmitted. There can definitely be clues about transmission in these networks, but rarely are there specific answers. Rather, we find associations.

Which is why I find the idea of "social contagion" rather troubling. Certainly we affect each other's habits and lifestyles. I don't doubt that. But I'm not convinced from these studies that simply being friends with a fat person is going to make me fat.

An anorexic friend can't make you anorexic. An anorexic parent can't make you anorexic (though the whammy hits from both the genetic and environmental side, for double the trouble). A black friend isn't going to make me tan better- though I wouldn't mind if they helped me burn just a bit less. A tall friend isn't going to make me taller.

I've made friends with many people who also struggle with eating disorders and other mental health issues. If you just looked at my Facebook page, you might start to think that hanging around these people may have caused my eating disorder. Or maybe that I even caused theirs. We have an association (ie, interest in eating disorder advocacy), but that says nothing about cause.

Do we see trends of behaviors passing between friends and family? Absolutely. Can these have both positive and negative effects? Absolutely. But talk of causation, especially for something as complexly regulated as body weight, seems rather premature.

I'm not sure why this realization took so long for me, but it did. And it was all thanks to my good friend L. I have been back in DC, frantically packing up my apartment, and I've gotten together with L. twice- once on Monday, and once tonight (Wednesday). Both times were very enjoyable and we talked and laughed and even gossiped a bit. This was much more fun than spending time with ED.

The differences between ED and my friends are quite profound.

ED makes me feel better, but only short-term. And then it drives everyone else away and I lie and tell stories and stop recognizing myself.
L. makes me feel better both short- and long-term.

My parents hate ED.
My parents like L.

ED takes the sparkle out of my eyes.
L. says how great it is that the sparkle is coming back.

ED has tried to kill me (and nearly succeeded).
L. hasn't.

ED tells me not to eat.
L. gets out snacks when I come to visit.

ED is an abusive bastard.
L. gives great hugs.

ED says I'll feel better if I starve/purge/exercise.
L. just listens and I feel better almost automatically.

The irony is that when my eating disorder started, I started to take a positive spin on my overwhelming loneliness (I was working at an internship in a strange city where I didn't know anyone). If I didn't have any friends, then I wouldn't have to eat with them. I began to think of friends as a waste of time, something to keep me away from my laundry list of rituals and must-dos. Because I would feel so anxious when I couldn't do whatever it was, even the idea of going out with a friend made me nervous and upset.

The ongoing depression and ED symptoms made it hard for me to begin new friendships and nurture previous ones. But I am slowly getting better at this, at letting people in, at loosening my white-knuckled grip on my rituals and activities. I am finally learning how to sit back and just enjoy someone else's company and be there with them in the moment.

I'm not sure why it took me so long to realize that these friendships meant far more to me than the ED, but I'm glad I learned that lesson.

My new friend Krystal emailed these spectacular words of wisdom to me yesterday, and it was so lovely I had to share it with you:

“You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around.”

Every time someone says to me, "I'll give you 10 of mine" (when I say I want to gain), every time you are saying to yourself "I look like a boy," every time you feel weak for having wrinkles, or hips...know this: you are enough....you ARE your body. It's not yours to possess and whip into shape or manage. It is beautiful and broken and the only thing that in the world that does not leave you.

Honor it...don't just accept it. Honor it.

I'm lucky- I'm related to some pretty cool people (Hi, Mom! Hi, Dad! Hi, Aria!). I'm also related to some douchebags, but let's focus on the positives, shall we? But I'm also lucky because I have some pretty awesome friends in my life, friends who I will miss dearly when I am back in Michigan. Friends who I didn't know before I moved to the area and now can't imagine my life without.

Today, I said a temporary farewell to my good friend L and also Laura Collins, who met my mom and I for lattes at Borders. Both L and Laura came bearing gifts, because they're cool like that. L made me a set of door hangers, two of which I've shown here:


My mom said we may as well hang the Aria one on the front door since the fuzzmuffin runs the entire house. 'Tis true.

Laura bought my mom and I some kids' books to inspire us during refeeding, and her and her family (Olympia and her son Elijah who knows me solely as Aria's mommy- the cat approves) made me my very own magic plate!


How cool is that? The lighting isn't the greatest but I didn't have time to fuss with my camera settings and my photo editor.

I'm really going to miss my two L friends. Getting back to them and the shreds of a life I had been building before the AN--that house of cards called "recovery"--came crashing down on me is one of my goals at this point.

I was at an Eating Disorders Coalition event this past Wednesday when I ran into my good friend Jenni Schaefer. I love Jenni. She is truly one of my heroes.

That day, she was wearing a t-shirt that said

"Recovered."

Now, a shirt that says "recovered" rocks, in my opinion.

I, however, was most drawn to the period at the end.

It says, "I am recovered, and will be. I am done with Ed, through with the lies. I am fully committed to my health and my life."

"Recovered" is a statement.

"Recovered." is a way of life.

Add that period, people. It does make a difference.

Because you need this:
I found this button logo months ago, and I kept forgetting to send it to you. Now I remembered, and I don't think it could have come at a better time, my friend.

You've scraped yourself up before, and you can do it again. I believe in you. There is hope. There is always hope.

Love ya, babe.

So Laura beat me to the summary of our day together by a long shot. This is not to say (I hope) that my mom and I enjoyed it any less than Laura.

I got to meet the whole Collins clan: Laura's husband (Samuel), her son (Elijah), and their two (enthusiastic) dogs. And, I even got to see the famous dinner table, around which Laura hosts her internet forum for parents.

I think the table at the Collins' house is quite the metaphor. It's an old wood table, worn but sturdy. It's like a lot of families: not perfect, not necessarily a work of art, but capable of bringing people together. The table at my parents house when I grew up, they got as kind of a cast off, either at an auction or it was dumped by the side of the road*. My dad painted it yellow to hide all of the dings and scratches. The chairs were all slightly different heights. Not a perfect table, and certainly not a perfect family.

But that's the beauty of it, and the beauty of the Maudsley Approach, which gave me my life back.

Thank you, Laura and family, for helping with that. And your bread is fantastic!

*This should answer the question of where I got my Salvation-Army-chic decorating sense.

My neighbors' granddaughter is 10 going on 11. She is exceptionally like me- quiet, bookish, and hitting puberty a bit before her friends.

And in the absolute worst way that could happen to a girl- at least in our society.

She's gained some of the necessary weight to begin puberty but she hasn't increased in height. This is how it typically happens, but no doctors or health professionals tell girls this. Why don't they cover this in the "You're a woman now" filmstrip? Yep, here's a Kotex, stick it to your panties and by the way, you're supposed to gain approximately one-third of your adult weight during puberty. No. They skip right to "The only sure way to prevent an STD is by abstinence." There's more to the story, people.

Happened to me and I got called a "fat cow" and sexually harassed all through 6th grade because of it. So believe me, I understand.

Yet in a way, what's happening to this girl is worse. Her friends are telling her she needs to lose weight, that she shouldn't eat this or that because it has too many calories. This little girl is her best friend and next-door neighbor. I'd like to say, "Well get a new friend!" but sometimes even shitty friends are hard to come by. Even then, it's not that easy.

My neighbors (who know about the ED) asked me how they should help K through this. I told them they should teach her how to hit girls like that in the face.

I don't think I was joking by all that much. I'd volunteer.

Then I go further down in the thinking process: okay, maybe this girl is a mean bitch, but she had to learn it somewhere. Not to automatically blame the mother, but she probably heard something. And I think K's mom should feel free to bring this up. Then, however, you have the awful situation of "She's a tattler!" and the teasing and comments won't stop because they're no longer "friends."

Can I just say how glad I am that I'm no longer in middle school and never will be again, EVER? It's another reason why I don't want to reproduce, so that I can spare some other soul from this shit.

To a girl these days (and even in my days in the late 80s and early 90s), being called fat, whether you are or not, is the absolute worst thing you can be called. It's the one rallying cry on the playground. I remember it very well. Kids are mean. They really are.

But someone needs to say that this behavior is unacceptable. I told my neighbors that this might be the best way to handle it. K's friend's behavior is inappropriate and unacceptable and most of all not true. That it will not be tolerated when adults are around. That this girl is abusing you for her own perverse purposes and she's not really a friend.

K is really sweet. She's not a twig, but welcome to reality- most of us aren't. She's healthy and muscular and athletic. And could probably kick this girl's ass in a heartbeat.

I almost wished she would.

Fat is now considered "contagious."

Why do I ever doubt the creativity of obesity researchers? They really have it going on.

Apparently, a new study showed that if you have fat friends, you're going to get fat, too.

The chances of a person "developing obesity"* increased 57% if a friend was obese, 40% if a sibling was, and 37% if a spouse was.

This is now more likely to determine your weight than genetics, the researchers say.

"We were stunned to find that friends who are hundreds of miles away have just as much impact on a person's weight status as friends who are right next door," said co-author James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego.

Researchers think it's more than just people with similar eating and exercise habits hanging out together. Instead, it may be that having relatives and friends who become obese changes one's idea of what is an acceptable weight.

So let me get this straight here: many of my friends I've met through this blog. Most of them, I've never seen pictures of. Therefore, I'm more likely to weigh what they do because they determine what an acceptable body weight is.

Here's a novel idea for you: what if we through out all preconceptions of an "acceptable weight"? What if an acceptable weight was whatever your own DNA told you to be at? What if we stopped asking stupid questions that could only yield stupid answers?

However, the researchers did caution severing friendships with obese people. Even the globe-trotting man with almost untreatable TB was not advised to ditch his wife. She was there in her little mask with him during interviews. No one said, "Get divorced." Or "Don't see each other." Wearing a mask is advisable, certainly. So what? Now you're supposed to wire your mouth shut around friends who have "unacceptable" weights?

I'm sorry, but if my friend found my weight unacceptable, I'd ditch them long before they could ditch me.

But wait: there's more.

"If you're just a little bit heavy and everyone around you is quite heavier, you will feel good when you look in a mirror," said Dr. David Katz, director of Yale University's Prevention Research Center.

Yep. Judge your self-worth based on your weight. Damn, don't I know where that leads. So their "new" proposal is to focus on getting whole groups of people to lose weight.

And damn, don't I know where that leads, too.

There is a little part that makes sense. It reminds me of pro-anorexia. Of the group fasts, of the posting of "thinspiration", of the cognitive reinforcement of the need to lose weight. And from that standpoint, it makes at least a tad of sense. It's really cognitive behavioral therapy, given in a effed up way.

The irony is that the "ideal" figure out there is so thin or so muscular that it's completely unattainable. Look at a magazine, feel fat. Look at a friend, feel thin. So what the hell are you supposed to do?

Stop looking at others for figuring out how you're supposed to look. That's the underlying assumption of this study. That you look to others to decide how and what you're supposed to be. Imagine telling an African-American with primarily white friends that they need to lighten their skin because they look "too dark" around them. Or a tall basketball player to lop a couple of inches off their legs because they look too tall against other people.

We would never say it 1) because it's rude and degrading and 2) because it's not true! Prejudice against fat people has the same name as prejudice against any other group of people: bigotry.

And now I've just proven that stupidity is far more contagious than obesity ever will be. Quad erat demonstratum.

*An asinine term if ever there was one. It's not a disease. You don't "develop" blonde hair or blue eyes or a hairy chest. In fact, it's not even a decent term.