Ten years ago when I was twelve years old I picked up a magazine. A health magazine to be specific. I will never forget the woman on the cover. “If that is not perfection, I don’t know what is.” I thought to myself. Her waist is the tiniest thing ever. Her boobs were small and upright. Her thighs were tiny. Her abs were visible.

“I would give anything to have her sharp collarbones and tiny waist.” Thankfully, the first article inside was how to get abs in a month. I took the article in and swore that in a month my waist would be just like hers.

I learnt about calories for the first time and a lot of other stuff. I read that I should count my calories and eat in a caloric deficit. I wanted to slim down my whole body. I wanted to lose weight. I wanted to be stick thin.

After reading plenty of women’s health magazines. I got a pretty great idea on how to count calories. Suddenly mom weighing her food and weighing herself every second started to make sense. I was excited. I was going to to look like Barbie in a month.

The plan was to cut out all “unhealthy” foods and start to eat “clean”. Then I would count calories and eat exactly 1000 calories per day. I was also going to start running with my mom every morning.

“What are doing??” A voice startled me from behind one morning.

“Hi Mom” I replied after getting over the shock. “I want to lose weight.”

“You want to what?!” She shouted, “Alex… Alex, listen to me. Look at me, leave the food let’s have a chat. Here. Sit. Look at me.”

“Baby.” She said taking my hands into hers. “What gave you the idea to lose weight?” “You look perfect and even if you did want to lose weight, don’t you think you should’ve asked me to take you to the doctor so that they can assist you to lose weight in a healthy manner??”

“You look amazing and you’re eight!! The only thing you should be stressing about right now is that Sally didn’t share her lunch with you.”

“I want to look like that girl on the magazine.” I finally said.

“But you already look like a Superstar.”

“You look like a super model and you are thin but you’re always talking about how fat and ugly you look. I always hear you talking to your friends about the diets that you are trying. You don’t eat cake because you said it would make you fat. You didn’t even eat it on your birthday. If you do all that, then why can’t I??”

Linda, my mom started uncontrollably crying. She was like full on sobbing. She cried for about an hour.

She then apologized and told me about how her mom would always be telling her she needs to lose weight and how fat she was. She told how her mom put her on these different restrictive diets.

“I swore that I’d never do that to my child and now seeing you do this completely breaks my heart.”

I then started crying. My mom was the best mom in the world. She always told me how beautiful I was. She taught me that I was more than my looks. She taught me how to use my voice. However all of that was overpowered by her lifestyle. The magazines in the house, the treadmill in front of the TV, the scale in the kitchen, the scale in the bathroom, the don’t get fat quotes in the refrigerator. It all sent a message to me.

“If I throw away both the scales and stop measuring my food and start believing that I am beautiful just the way I am. Will you also believe that you are beautiful just the way you are??”

“Do you promise??” I asked.

“I promise baby, I promise”

We pinky swore and my mom followed through.

“Ma’am, I am not your therapist and the story you just told me, what does it have to do anything??” The investigator said impatiently.

“I just wanted to give you the back story. I promise it has something to do with why the plane crashed.” I said.

“At that moment, I thought I had escaped diet culture. That thanks to my mom I would have a great relationship with food and my body but little did I know what was to come.” I continued.

“Anyways ten years passed by and I’m a mess. I’m just glad no one got hurt.”

“Miss Grain, you still haven’t answered the question. How did you crash the plane?” The investigator asked again.

“I have no idea how it happened but I do know why. I was on yet another diet. A juice cleanse. Before the meal you gave me to help me regain strength, I haven’t had anything solid in over sixty days.”

“So I became light headed mid flight. I had no strength to fly that plane. I don’t know what happened next.”

“I know what happened next. Three people almost lost their lives. Three world sweethearts.”

“I’m sorry, I really, really am.” I said tearfully.

“I will probably regret asking but…Why were you on a juice cleanse Miss??”

“We have a family dinner in a week. I don’t want anybody to comment on my body so I thought the solution was to get really, really thin.”

“You know people are still going to comment on your body no matter how you look or how much you weigh right.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t want to lose weight but I’m saying you should at least do it for a valid reason and for you and do it in a healthy way. People will always have something negative to say. So just put your opinion first.”

“That is cheesey and sweet… Thank you.”

* I know, I know it’s not that easy. Dismantling this diet mindset won’t happen just like that. But through this story I was hoping to bring awareness of the dangers of diet culture. Yes, of course I did exaggerate to make a point but diet culture is still extremely dangerous.

Children as young as 8 years old are restricting food. They are over exercising and doing a lot of other stuff to get “thin”. 8 year olds!!! And on top of that people, especially women are afraid to get public recognition for their work because of how they look. This is serious, women are scared to share their work with the world because they’re scared that instead of appreciating their work we’ll tear down their confidence. Women are afraid to publish books, showcase their inventions and share their discoveries. They say things like, I’ll first lose weight then publish the book.

Is that what we have become as a society??

There is a relationship between women’s growing social power and the thin female beauty ideal. So basically, the more women gain power the more unrealistic the beauty standards get.

The more women want to get thinner, because that’s the idealized body. People assume it’s because if women are busy starving themselves trying to get thin, they won’t have the energy and time to gain more power. They’ll be busy obsessing over their looks.

Same with school. Teenagers feel the most pressure from these beauty standards. They are mostly influenced by them. If they’re busy counting their calories, feeling guilty for eating, starving themselves and body checking every minute. They will not have enough energy and mental capacity to do that and also achieve their academic goals.

This is a very depressing reality.

I don’t have any solutions to this problem. I just… Food thought, I just want you to think about what you just read. Really, think about it. Maybe you’ll even find a solution.