From ages 15 to 20, I kept a calorie diary.
I logged meals intermittently: I’d start out listing every calorie I’d eat throughout the day, down to the spoonful of milk in my coffee, then miss a couple of days and stop for a while, only to start the cycle all over again a week or a month later.
It would sometimes be external factors prompting me to start again – feeling overwhelmed by school chores, a boy I had a crush on not liking me back, seeing a picture of Kate Moss on the teenage magazines I fixated over. You know, the usual.
But more often, my cruel exercises of control over my own body were prompted by my obsession with calories, and my belief that my worth as a person – as a woman – directly correlated to the amount I consumed on a given day.
One day I’d eat more than I intended to, which is easy enough when you intend to starve, and the counting would begin again.
I lived by numbers on packets, numbers on spreadsheets, numbers I knew by heart and added up in my head.
Did you know how many calories an aubergine has? I do, because I read it once when I was 15, and I will never forget.
I memorised these figures more than a decade ago, when I had no idea they would follow me around for the rest of my life. But I know now that once the numbers are in your head, it’s hard to forget them.
What makes forgetting harder is having to see the same numbers everywhere you look.
BEAT
If you suspect you, a family member or friend has an eating disorder, contact Beat on 0808 801 0677 or at [email protected], for information and advice on the best way to get appropriate treatment
As of 6 April, government regulations now require businesses with 250 or more employees operating in the ‘out of home’ sector – not only restaurants and cafés, but also supermarkets and any large player selling food on the go – to display calorie information on menus and food labels.
This includes online menus and even food delivery app displays, which, let’s admit, is laughable. No one ordering KFC on a Sunday morning will be deterred once Deliveroo lets them know exactly how many calories they’re attempting to nurse their hangover with.
As someone who has struggled with an eating disorder for most of her life, I believe this is a careless, dangerous policy.
It’s the result of perfunctory consulting on the Government’s part, seemingly without a thought spared for the 1.25million people in the UK suffering from some form of eating disorder who may be negatively affected.
The measure is part of the Government’s wider strategy to fight obesity, which is one of the biggest health issues in the country costing the NHS an estimated £6.1billion each year, so one could argue that some version of this regulation needed to be put in place.
However, studies continue to prove menu labelling is ineffective in its intent to reduce the number of calories people consume when eating outside the home, which begs the question: did the Government do its research?
One large study by the NYU Langone Medical Center looking into how the mandated displaying of calorie information on menu boards in fast-food restaurants in New York City influenced consumers’ behavior found ‘no statistically significant changes’.
After the province of Ontario mandated calorie labelling in 2017, a Canadian Journal of Public Health study went as far as suggesting this might be ‘a misguided public health initiative’ with ‘evidence of minimal benefit’.
We already know focusing on calories alone doesn’t produce results, whether it’s in fad diets or in public health, and it also dismisses the valuable truth that two people can eat exactly the same meals and see entirely different effects on their weight and overall health.
No one ordering KFC on a Sunday morning will be deterred once Deliveroo lets them know exactly how many calories they’re attempting to nurse their hangover with
What tracking calories does, however, is skyrocket anxiety and promote unhealthy habits among people already struggling with eating disorders or some form of disordered eating. Such as prioritising empty numbers, and not nutritional value; obsessive thought patterns and anxiety; extreme restricting that often leads to more bingeing, and so on.
The same Canadian study highlights ‘a lack of consideration as of yet to the unintended negative implications this initiative may have on eating disorder (ED) symptomatology in the general population and those attempting to recover from an ED’.
A study into the use of online calorie tracking applications reports that ‘the act of calorie counting may increase the rigidity associated with eating disorders’.
In 2009, jeans were low and Abercrombie had us trying to squeeze into a laughable size double zero.
I was 15, and Nicole Richie and Victoria Beckham reigned supreme on all the fitspo Tumblr blogs I followed.
Had these regulations come into effect back then, my then-mild disordered eating would have taken no time to turn nastier and infinitely more dangerous.
Counting calories at lunch can lead to skipping dinner. Having every meal you consume easily labelled is doing the job of your eating disorder for you, it’s asking any latent form of body dysmorphia, control-seeking or trauma suppressing tendencies we might have to come out and play. It’s where disorders start, not where we see improvements.
In Italy, where I’m from, calories are often an afterthought.
Pasta is relatively healthy because it’s kept to its basics, no orange cheese slices or cream in sight, and store-bought sauces are few and far between.
Fruit and vegetables are cheaper than they are in the UK, and they actually taste like fruit and vegetables should, which makes you want to eat more of them.
I don’t know if the sandwiches you get from the café down the road from my parents in Milan are healthier than their British counterparts, but they certainly look it.
I couldn’t enjoy any of that when I last lived in the country, because I was deep in the throes of my despair, and, well, finding pleasure in any type of food, no matter how divine, was kind of everything my illness went against.
But these days I’m trying to remember that I fought hard to be here, and that my 15-year-old self would be proud of the enthusiasm with which I now devour my favourite pizza, no guilt or numbers in mind.
Former health minister Lord Bethell said the Government is ‘growing our investment in community healthcare for adults year on year, with almost £1billion extra by 2023, with specific funding to transform adult eating disorder care’.
Why don’t we start by listening to survivors? It doesn’t cost a thing, but it might help save millions.
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