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How to Deal with People Who Don’t Understand Eating Disorders
We have all had that conversation. You have to tell a loved one about your eating disorder, or your loved ones have questions about it. So you sit down over coffee or dessert and…stare at each other.
I have had this conversation a few times. The most prominent one during a two-month trip to Albania (Albania is in Europe, northwest of Greece, and across the Adriatic Sea from Italy). Long story short, the trip was amazing — beautiful country, warm weather, and friendly people, but the delicious food got me.
The food in Albania is similar to American cuisine. We had pizza or pasta every night. Every corner had a coffee shop and a bakery where we could get a ten-cent specialty coffee or freshly baked bread and pastries, respectively. Every week we traveled to the farmer’s market and bought fresh fruit and vegetables.
Sounds like the life, right? Not exactly.
Though the food was delicious, the portion sizes were small. The time between meals was twice as long as those in America and Albanians don’t snack. Typically, I, a five-foot ten-inch woman in her twenties, consumed about 2,500 calories; overseas, we ate about 1,500 calories. Long story short, I was permanently hangry.
