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An Apple a Day

    I remember being on stage and telling myself to push through and that I am fine. That was a total lie. It was recital weekend and we were performing multiple shows a day. I was dancing throughout most of the production. I was in my eating disorder and I had barely eaten anything at all that week. On the days we had recital I went all day only eating an apple. I wouldn’t eat any other food those days until after I was done dancing. When the shows were over I would go home to eat dinner, the first real food I had eaten all day. It was 9:30 at night. Dinner would take me so long to eat because I would savor that food because I knew I wouldn’t let myself have another meal until the next night. My stomach was so small that I couldn’t even take in much food without getting full. These days were some of the darkest because I felt like passing out every show and didn’t tell anyone. At that point it was mind over matter I definitely could have passed out, but I kept pushing. A part of me wanted to pass out so people would hear my silent cries for help and stop me. I never did.

    Nobody should ever have to survive on only an apple. Nobody should think they don’t deserve food. Food is what fuels your body so you can have energy. I had no energy I was a running car without fuel. You don’t have to deprive yourself of food because you don’t think you aren’t worth it or don’t need it. Everybody deserves to eat…not only that but we all deserve to enjoy food.  I never want anybody to go through what I did at recital week.

    People are so much more than their body or eating disorder and should not be defined by that. As Jennifer Lawrence once said, “What are you going to do? Be hungry every single day to make other people happy? That’s just dumb.” (Feelin' it)

Work cited:

Feelin' it: Jennifer Lawrence's empowering call to self-acceptance. Visual Therapy. (2014, October 17). Retrieved October 31, 2021,
 https://visual-therapy.com/blog/feelin-it-jennifer-lawrences-empowering-call-to-self-acceptance/.

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