Pen and Moon

musings, life lessons & poetry from Theresa Jarosz Alberti

Tag: fat (Page 1 of 2)

What Really Helped my Eating Disorder Recovery

January 4, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Happy New Year! After such a rough 2020 for all of us, I am ready to soak in the New Year energy and move forward. I feel hopeful about 2021.

Diets and exercise and makeovers and  new-and-improving ourselves are so much apart of New Year’s resolutions in our culture. For some of us, these plans are entwined with painful relationships with food and our bodies that cause a lot of shame and suffering. All this may go hand-in-hand with feeling crazy around food, hating your body, disordered eating patterns, or a full-blown eating disorder.

I’ve written about this before, the fact that I have an eating disorder that began when I was 11 years old (you can read about it here and here). What I haven’t written about is my recovery from the eating disorder. Continue reading

Who Has an Eating Disorder?

March 8, 2020 / / 2 Comments

Last week was National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. I hope you’ll take a few moments to brush up on some info… it could be really helpful for you or someone you care about.

That person there in your office, sitting two cubicles away. That woman at the gym in the front row of your yoga class. That teen plugged into her phone on the bus. That senior woman sipping tea at the cafe.

Who has an eating disorder? The truth is, it could be anybody. You can’t tell from looking at someone if they have one, or what kind of eating disorder they have. Continue reading

How Lizzo Taught Me to Love My Big …

January 26, 2020 / / 4 Comments

I was in the locker room at the Y a few weeks ago. After showering I draped my towel across my front to walk a few steps to go into the sauna, leaving my back-side exposed. Bodies are naked all the time in the locker room and I’m casual about nudity, so it was no big deal. It’s a busy place and I barely noticed the mom with her young daughter crossing behind me. Until I heard the small voice:

“Look at her big butt.”

Oh.

Continue reading

Let’s Talk About “Size”

August 13, 2019 / / 4 Comments

One evening last week, I went on a walk with my husband Bob. Halfway through, we sat on a parkway bench, talking. We were startled by a voice shouting out of a car going by, a middle-school-aged boy with his head stuck out of the open window, looking at us. We turned to each other, puzzled. “I think he said, ‘Fat Positivity.'” That’s what we both heard. But… why?

Bob went on with what he had been talking about, and I found myself unable to listen. I felt the familiar warm flush of shame on my face, and my mind started spinning on the incident. “Fat Positivity” sounded, well, Positive, but was it taunting? Was it solidarity of some kind (a lot to expect from a young boy)? Even if it was well-intended, it was still someone seeing me in all my fatness, noticing it, calling it out. I felt seen in a way I didn’t want to be, attention being called to an aspect of my body that is unacceptable by society’s standards, not to mention being judged as unattractive, undesirable, and a personal failing. Continue reading

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