How Quarantine Forced Me to Address My Disordered Eating Patterns

A busy schedule is the easiest way to disguise disordered eating habits. Prior to quarantine, my daily routine included going to the gym while the rest of the apartment building was still sleeping and rushing to just barely make it to class at 9:30 a.m. I skipped breakfast and replaced it with a strong iced coffee, then scarfed down a salad between my morning and afternoon classes, leaving myself completely famished by the time I crashed through my apartment door over nine hours later. I was always busy, running errands, doing work, completing projects, and seeing friends, with no time to stop or even really evaluate my own health.

Then, the whole world came to a grinding halt.

All at once, us college students were extracted from the environments we had come to know as our true homes. We were suddenly forced to put our individual growth and independence on hold, only to return to our parents’ house— somewhere many of us haven’t lived since high school.

Just like that, my delicately curated routine crumbled. I couldn’t go to the gym, my classes now occurred at different times because of time zone changes, and worst of all, I couldn’t leave my house or keep myself busy as I once had. Everything felt uncomfortable and out of place. As my rigid daily structure fell away, with it came the veil of my past eating disorder, cleverly disguised as “fitting meals into my busy schedule” as a justification for eating less.

Perhaps it wasn’t conscious at first, but becoming more lethargic, moving less, eating more, and dealing with full access to a completely stocked kitchen 24 hours a day, caused me to feel… well… chubby. Cue the dangerous cycle of restriction that I had previously turned to in an effort to be “thin.” The kind of eating disorder tendencies that I had developed well before the chaos of college.

At just fifteen, I set out to shrink myself. I was desperate to take up the least amount of space in my clothes, rejoicing when jeans were too baggy to fit, or when I was able to tighten my belts to the very last loop.

I was addicted to calorie tracking apps, punishing myself with exercise in order to “allow” myself a meal. I measured every ounce of food, cutting out anything that I labeled as “bad” – bread, chips, cookies, crackers, pancakes, cereal, anything that I feared would make me gain weight – and consumed only things I thought were “good” for me. For me, it wasn’t even about looking like the models in the magazines at the grocery store checkout line. It was just deeply internalized fatphobia that I hadn’t realized I possessed.

I withered down to a measly 110 pounds. As a 5’5” woman of my size, that was severely underweight, yet I still dreaded stepping on the scale each morning. The excitement only came once the numbers started to dip dangerously low.

What I saw as the “perfect” body came at a cost. One paid by hair loss, malnutrition, vitamin deficiencies, fatigue, slowed metabolism and a case of body dysmorphia that has followed me well into adulthood.

While I no longer restrict myself, those eating disorder tendencies tucked themselves away in my brain. Just when I thought I had kicked the nasty habits once and for all, coronavirus reared its ugly head.

With COVID-19 came the “quarantine 15” memes, the jokes about not being able to fit into your jeans after months of working from home, and the “quarantine glow up” inspired by well-meaning fitness gurus. Coupled with the trend of “What I Eat in a Day” posts (which usually consist of shockingly low calorie counts), the emphasis on body image in quarantine was quickly becoming overwhelming.

As harmless as they may initially seem, these trends perpetuate fatphobia, which is something our society has unfortunately internalized. This way of thinking makes some of us fear gaining weight almost as much as we fear catching COVID-19.

Despite the fact we are in a pandemic, diet culture has weaseled its way onto all of our social media feeds, reminding us that this could be the perfect time to lose weight, all while joking about the heightened potential for weight gain. With this kind of “humor” comes messages that can compel someone to begin dieting, trigger someone on the brink of an eating disorder, or provoke someone in recovery. In short, diet culture should not be benefiting from a pandemic, yet somehow, it is.

Disordered eating habits are addictive. They make people like me obsessed with attaining the lowest number possible on both clothing tags and the scale. Food is our dreaded kryptonite – we don’t see it as fuel for our bodies, but rather, as an enemy. Our heart rates rise when we see the pre-calculated calories on restaurant menus, we read every label at the grocery store, and skip nights out with friends because we just can’t afford the extra calories. Eventually, the kitchen becomes little more than a temptation but rather, a reminder that breaking your restrictive habits might lead to a binge on everything you once deemed forbidden.

While I didn’t think this way when I had a busy schedule – probably because I had no time to even address those subconscious fears and habits – I was now forced to face it head on in quarantine.

Everything about my schedule changed. I no longer had a support system of friends at my immediate fingertips, no fully accessible gym, no space of my own. This sudden loss of normalcy and routine left me grasping for something I could control when the rest of the world felt so unpredictable. For me, that was food.

I began slipping into old habits: tracking calories, making sure I exercised so I didn’t feel so sedentary, and putting on jeans every few days just to make sure they fit. When I started to feel my anxiety worsen from the stress I had about food, I realized I was starting back down a dangerous path.

Thankfully, I’m six years into recovery, long enough for me to see warning signs and correct them when they start. I remind myself that food is fuel, that I don’t need to exercise every day to “earn” my meals, that pizza and pasta are not going to “make me fat” and that one salad will not “make me healthy.” I workout because it feels good to sweat and makes me feel stronger, not because I need to burn off every calorie and shrink to the size of a tack.

I speak positively to myself every day when I put on clothes in the morning, whether it’s my third day in sweatpants or not, and I filter my social media to only show body positive content. I push away feelings of guilt after eating big meals, or the desire to do extra ab workouts while watching TV to compensate. I also indulge in my fear foods, take rest days and let myself feel my anxiety and body dysmorphia so that I can address it and cope in a healthy way, instead of letting it eat me alive.

I no longer fear the “quarantine 15.” Who cares if we put on some weight? Instead of stressing over a pants size, I’m grateful that I have a body that is able to support me through a pandemic, a body that is privileged to not have contracted COVID-19, a body that is healthy, strong and fueled, not withered from self-destructing habits like it used to be.

My new “normal” – whatever that is – is no longer the uncompromising routine I once had. It includes listening to my body cues, finding time to center myself, working on projects I’ve always wanted to start and finally, taking the time to rest.

If there’s one thing that recognizing my disordered eating habits has taught me, it’s that coming out of this pandemic five pounds heavier means that I will have emerged virtually unscathed, and I’ll feel incredibly lucky. The ongoing pandemic is, after all, a gentle reminder that there are much worse things that could happen to your body.