It's Not About Size.

Several of the magazines today that I saw in the store listed articles about Michael Jackson's extreme malnutrition and his extreme thin and frail body. These articles speculate on the fact that Michael may have been anorexic and that this may have attributed to his demise. I have no doubts in my mind that Michael was a severely tormented soul. I also understand that one thing people do in their lives when they are struggling is use food. They may over eat. They may under eat, or in extreme cases binge and purge. This is also something I know a great deal about. People who over eat do it most often due to a filling of a void that needs filled. Whether this void is of self worth, or self loathing is a hard question to answer. Food in this case is used as a comfort. You see the food won't judge you and rarely will it let you down, but it's only a temporary comfort and usually leaves a person feeling worse than they did prior to eating it. Purge and binge? I can understand where people might do this too. I mean you want the food for comfort, but then you feel guilty for eating it. You feel guilty for losing that control you have for a moment. Then the need to get rid of it may become overwhelming. Lastly there is the lack of eating of food. One might wonder a lot on this one how this is a comfort. I know all too well. In my teen years and into my early twenties I was very depressed on many levels. I was also unsure and confused. There were very few things that I felt I had control of, but food was one thing I could control. I could say when and what I ate. My friend Joe drew a characterization of me one time where he depicted me with either just a diet coke or a water. I have often looked at that, yes I still have it, and wondered if he knew how accurate it was for that time. I was fairly thin back in those days. It wasn't easy. It was done from lack of food. It wasn't the healthy thing to do. The diet and program I am on now is slow and frustrating; however, it is the correct and healthy way this time. Back then a normal time for me would be a sandwich every couple of days or a salad. I rarely ate on an everyday basis. Diet Coke and water were my staples. I remember one week I went all seven days and food never touched my lips. I also remember a few weeks later getting very sick and being so week I remember crawling to the bathroom. I had the flu, but I think it was twice as bad as it would have been since my body didn't have the nutrients it needed to support and sustain me. It took me a long time to figure it out in my mind and I did talk to a counselor. Dr. B. He was really cool, but even then there were things I didn't tell him. I prayed and I did a lot of thinking and thankfully I pulled through that dark time. It was followed by years of using food as a comfort though. Now I am working on being mentally and physically fit. The mental is good I think. I am happy. I have a direction in my life and a purpose. I'm taking weight off very slow and very steady and by eating (that is a key) and exercising. Either way I can understand the emotional roller coasters and their associations they can have with food. Yes, I think Michael was a tortured soul and I can sort of relate. I pulled out of mine though. I doubt very much though that his lack of eating or food had anything to do with size though. Food issues rarely truly have to do with size. There are underlying issues the person is dealing with. No, I know from my own demons and my own issues, it's not about size.