I Was Horrified By What A Teacher Asked My Daughter To Do. His Response To Me Was Just As Disturbing.

I genuinely try to curb my mama bear instincts in most situations. So when my 15-year-old daughter Lilly climbed into our car during the second week of her sophomore year of high school and said that her health teacher was making the class keep a food journal, I fought to quiet the alarm bells going off in my head.

“It’s OK, though,” she told me. “Please — PLEASE — don’t send one of your emails.” 

I sighed.

“Fine.”

She was new to this high school and didn’t want to be The Girl With That Mom.

A week later, Lilly called me into her room. Her eyes were filled with tears.

“Today the health teacher said, ‘I don’t care if you eat just 1,000 calories a day.’ I’m sure he was joking, but I don’t think I can stay in this class.” She sighed.

“Also, he’s making us use a calorie tracker for our food journals, the same one I used last year.”

A cold fist squeezed my stomach because I knew exactly what she was referring to. I would never forget the days of watching my daughter eat less and less, turn down food at dinner, and throw away almost entire meals when we ate out, as she slipped into the trap of disordered eating.

The worst part was that I knew that trap all too well. 

When I was her exact same age I was admitted to a hospital for anorexia nervosa. My weight was dangerously low after a series of traumatic circumstances left me reeling, grappling for a sense of control in my life, and finding that control in what I ate. Or rather, didn’t eat.

I was in treatment for 26 days, during which I was often confined to bed for hours due to problems with my pulse and blood pressure. After being discharged, I wanted to stay out of the hospital, but food was still one area of my life where I could exert control. Every night for over a year, I wouldn’t let myself fall asleep until I tallied the calories of everything I’d eaten to ensure it was the Goldilocks amount — not too much to gain weight, but not too little that I would lose any either. Packaged foods made it easy to know exactly how much I had consumed, and I tried to eat most meals at home so I could measure and track my intake.

It wasn’t until I turned 16 that I stopped counting calories. I traveled to Australia that summer and quickly realized my system wasn’t sustainable. Instead, I began listening to and trusting my body. I went to cafes with friends where we sipped frothy cappuccinos, then enjoyed stews or pasties for dinner and Lamingtons for dessert. Someone introduced me to TimTams, the heavenly chocolate cookies that managed to both crumble and melt in my mouth. I suddenly realized how exhausted I was by calorie tracking, and it was so freeing to fall asleep at night without conducting my obsessive tally.

After that, I made it a point not to count calories, fast, or diet. I had always been athletic, but now I listened to my body and didn’t try to hurt it with my workouts.

When I became a mother, I wanted to make sure my children never knew the hell of disordered eating. I stopped buying popular women’s magazines when I realized how they all had cover lines like, “Lose 10 pounds this month!” in bright, bold letters.

My kids saw me work out, but I kept the emphasis on being strong and using fitness to help me deal with stress. I never said degrading things about my body, never weighed myself except at doctor visits, and never demonized food in front of them.