They call him ED

Ed is an abbreviated and personified form of the phrase "eating disorder." It is the inner critic inside telling us we're not good enough and we should eat less and aim to look a certain way because of it. 1 in 7 women is said to have an eating disorder in America. Reasons are diverse and often overlapping -- pressure from peers, media, anxiety and depression. It's caused both by having an innate vulnerability to the disease as well as factors from one's environment.

It's a dark and destructive place -- to be consumed by the numbers on the scale and to fear what is meant to be sustenance and nutrition. I've definitely read and seen how Ed grips people in differing degrees of severity. Some women are scared out of their minds to eat and need drugs to calm them down. Others manage to allow themselves nourishment, but are just overly analytical about it.

I remember for myself when I was in that bad place in my life, when sitting down at a restaurant or going grocery shopping would result in an immediate routine dialogue in my head about what's the best choice to eat based on what would make me fat or not: I should only order dishes that would be the least greasy and smallest portions. I cannot buy anything with too much sugar, actually forget buying any snacks at all. How did that all start? I can pinpoint a moment in my junior year of highschool that I looked at myself one day and thought "too fat." And the cutting of portions, the slashing out of sugary and unhealthy snacks, the constant weighing and number counting began.

A good day wasn't a day where I ate delicious foods and had all things in moderation. No, a good day was me being hungry, dizzy and grumpy. What's sad was that despite feeling miserable and anxious all the time of what went in my stomach, I felt proud and accomplished. Each pound lost was a victory of ridding myself the nuisances and despicableness I found in my life. Each pound lost was the finger at Nature, who did not make me thin and beautiful as I would have liked to have been. Even though I was so unhappy with many things in my life, I had the trophies of my weight-control to take comfort in.

But those days are in the past. I was never really diagnosed with an ED, but I'm pretty sure I would have been had I continued down that path. Interestingly, I had gradually gotten myself out of trying to lose weight all the time. It might have been a combining factor of a lot of things -- 1) my tactics to drop the pounds was backfiring and I was just sick of battling myself all the time, 2) i was finding myself less and less anxious about life and more and more blessed at all the new things I was embarking upon in college 3) I like food too much to give a shit anymore.

Honestly though, I still relapse into very negative thoughts about my looks like today when I was trying on clothes at a store. There's something about being in a fitting room with unfamiliar articles of clothing that can make or break a girl's perception of herself. Sizes are so varying and those mirrors are so darn revealing that it's difficult not to listen to Ed who's telling you you should be X pounds less so you can fit into certain things better.

I really hope one day I can just not care anymore. I really hope to not have to care about such superficial concerns and not to wastefully let it take precedence in my thoughts and attention. I really hope to make the inner critic in me STFU while it's screaming all the regrets I should be having for what I ate dinner or how I should look like. I really hope to listen to only what the real me is saying.

After reading this article and video I was just floored by how controlling and destructive Ed is.

It's such a inward-focused mentality and it's so so sad that many talented and brilliant people just can't be themselves anymore because Ed is consuming them and letting them waste away. I hope everyone can realize how there's so much more to life than caring to look "pretty enough" or "thin enough." it's not worth the time and feelings and anxiety and thought energy!