Disordered Eating

When I was in college I lived on a pack of cigarettes, a cup or two of coffee and one $1 hamburger a day. I’d go to the grocery store and spend like $20. Ramen and Kool-aid were good choices, because you could get 10 for a $1. That’s 10 meals right there.

“Disordered eating?”

No. I was just broke. I was a “starving student.”

I ain’t that poor anymore, so I ain’t that thin anymore either.

Since that Oprah show about how the developing world’s girls and women really live, I’ve been thinking how anorexia and bulimia and other disordered eating patterns are pretty high brow, upper-class, spoiled problems to have. It’s downright ungrateful. It’s narcissistic. It’s insane.

And Obesity? We’re so prosperous we’ll eat ourselves to death? I don’t even know what to call that in the face of the way the majority of the world lives. What a luxury! Even the poor of our country can become morbidly obese from eating more food than they want or need. You can get fat on our food stamp program.

There are people in the world who are actually starving to death. Lots of them.

Imagine the hours and energy we’ve devoted to diets, weight-loss, treatment centers, support groups, whining and complaining about our images in the mirror in the face of the poverty much of the world faces.

“Disordered Eating” has to be the understatement of the year.

The Mormons do this thing called “Fast Sunday.” The first Sunday out of the month, they fast – go without food – and donate what they would have spent on food for those meals to the hungry. The actual hungry. The ones who might starve to death.

Imagine if all the dieters and “disordered eaters” made this a practice in 2009. If all the dieters and self-loathers and “disordered thinkers” fed someone starving – who would we be then?

When I imagine it, I visualize all the disordered eaters might become spiritually satiated.

The protein in one egg is a nutritious gift for a hungry child, and you could help a hungry family with a starter flock of 10 to 50 chicks. A good hen can lay up to 200 eggs a year — meaning plenty to eat, share or sell. For $20 you can buy a family a flock of chicks.

(Here are some more links if you’re looking for a place to donate).