Life After Diets
Dieter Beware!
The insidiousness of the wellness re-brand
I did my first round of Weight Watchers (now WW) the summer after I graduated high school, and by the end of that year, I had developed a full-blown eating disorder. Losing weight had been fairly simple when it was summer, and I was only working part-time and not going to school and had ample free time to dedicate to very basic meal planning and exercise routines in my living room.
It’s also so much easier when you’re only 18 and otherwise healthy, but that’s neither here nor there.
For the first few weeks of college, it was somehow even easier. Forget about the freshman fifteen, my college cafeterias were stocked with fresh, organic staples and the most amazing salad bars I’d ever seen. Hot meals were fresh and often made-to-order. All diets were accommodated, and there were nutrition cards at every display.
Coming from the fast-food and take-out dinners of a single mother household, I was thrilled with the food college had to offer, and it helped me keep track of my points.
Eventually, though, my routines became unsustainable, and so too had my diet. I couldn’t work out, go to classes, work a part-time job, hang out with friends, and study on 1,000–1,200 calories per day. I was eating all my…
