“Fatty”

on greek yogurt, Ariana Grande, and getting exactly what you wished for

TW eating disorders. I am not a health professional, this is my personal experience.

I went to the doctor last week complaining of fatigue. We talked about my lifestyle, my diet, and the results of some recent bloodwork. Other than being a little low on a few important vitamins, I am healthy.

“I’d like you to eat a bit more,” she said. “It wouldn’t hurt to gain some weight.”

I almost laughed.

There was a time I fantasized about hearing those words. I could imagine no greater privilege than being told to eat more. But I didn’t laugh. Because the truth is, I do want to gain some weight. And I’m having a really hard time doing it.

I love to eat. I have no problem eating when I’m hungry. I enjoy food. I look forward to meals. I plan days around restaurants, trips around regional cuisine.

Yet, I can’t seem to help my shrinking.

I used to keep an album on my phone called “Fatty.” It was full of unflattering photos of myself I saved as motivation to eat less. A cruelty toward myself I’ve yet to fully make amends with.

My eating disorder claimed a chunk of my life. I could never be skinny enough. I sacrificed formative years, once-in-a-lifetime memories, and countless important moments to feed the voice in my head that told me I was disgusting.

I couldn’t bear the idea of being “big,” of taking up more space than I was entitled to, and I felt entitled to none.

The kind of photos you would find in “fatty.”

The weight I was in those “fatty” photos is now the weight I’m trying to reach.

Because the truth is, I was never fat. I was chubby. I carried my baby fat well into my twenties. Eternally bloated in ill-fitting clothes but I was never fat. I was insecure. Deeply, profoundly insecure. My body became both a distraction from my problems and a tool for managing them—a way to reward and punish myself, to manufacture a sense of control over burdens that had nothing to do with my size.

Now, I am actively and ironically trying to get bigger. I want to be stronger. I want more energy. I want a fuller figure. But I cannot bring myself to eat when I don’t want to, when I don’t feel hungry. Even when I know I should.

No one wants to hear about a skinny girl’s struggle to gain weight, I know (I promise, I know!). I hope to give some color to just how deeply pathological this thing is. The thoughts don’t disappear so much as they lose authority.

I consider myself fully recovered, yet I still catch myself doing odd little things. Not making time for lunch. Convincing myself dinner can wait. Treating food as the first sacrifice when life gets busy.

I hate to cook. If a healthy meal isn’t easy, available, ordered, or provided by a parent/partner, I’m keen to say “fuck it” and skip a meal.

And why do I hate to cook? I claim I can’t cook, but that’s a lie. I am not gifted, but I am capable. The truth is that I don’t want to cook. Which is strange, because I love food and I love creating. So what exactly is my opposition?

Foods I think about cooking (but don’t).

Every few months, I go through a Greek yogurt phase. My quick-fix solution to upping my protein and calorie intake while keeping health conscious.

I decide that instead of ice cream after dinner, I’ll make myself a beautiful, nutritious bowl of Greek yogurt with fresh fruit, crunchy granola, and a big scoop of peanut butter.

And it is always delicious! For three days. Maybe four. By the end of the week, I’m standing in my kitchen staring down a bowl of dense, tangy yogurt and wishing it were rich and creamy instead. Wishing it were ice cream.

Then I have neither.

End of the yogurt bowl hell.

I want to gain weight, but I want to gain the right kind of weight. I want to do it correctly. I want to stay healthy. Virtue over pleasure, Greek yogurt over ice cream.

Underneath all those reasonable concerns lurks a familiar anxiety. What if I lose control? What if I expand my appetite only to fill it with frozen food and processed snacks? What if I stop paying attention? What if I become careless? What if, what if, what if.

I am ashamed to admit that a deep dark part of me believes that if I gain weight, all my suffering would have been for nothing.

Bulking.

I do not know what we are meant to do about Ariana Grande severely and publicly starving herself. I do know the conversation around her and eating disorders remains profoundly misunderstood. The constant, almost obsessive ridicule of her body. Observers seemingly wanting her to faint on stage, be forced to cancel the rest of her tour, making her illness undeniable. Fans asking, “Can’t someone do something?” as if eating disorders are problems with solutions rather than illnesses that rewire the brain.

I also know there is almost nothing more gratifying to an anorexic than being told you look sick. Because isn’t that the goal? To make the internal visible?

Anyone who spent time on Tumblr during the pro-anorexia era (yes, that was a thing!) remembers that Ariana Grande was That Girl. Founding father of the thigh gap. Tiny hands emerging from oversized sleeves, clutching a black iced coffee. So petite. So vegan. While she did not create that image on her own, she undeniably played into it.

Iykykykykyky.

And people loved it! People loved teeny-tiny itty-bitty sitting-on-the sink-doing-her-make-up Ariana Grande—until she got too tiny.

Part of the public response, I think, is society trying to establish a boundary: there is such a thing as too skinny, and this is it. There is something reassuring about that consensus. But that certainty has curdled into cruelty.

Let me also be frank. It is a privilege to be so malnourished. Speaking from experience, I could only devote myself fully to my eating disorder when I worked part-time, had few interpersonal obligations, and could sleep twelve hours a day. Celebrities can maintain bodies that would be unsustainable for regular people because they can outsource so much of daily life. They can pay for the labor of living.

I feel immense empathy for Ariana Grande. She has faced traumas no human should have to encounter, and she has been forced to do so publicly. Whatever is happening in her private life, she remains a human being living under extraordinary scrutiny.

I cannot know what is happening inside Ariana Grande’s mind, nor do I want to project my own experiences onto her. But I recognize certain impulses. Because in low moments, I miss my eating disorder. I miss the certainty of it. The false sense of accomplishment. The intoxicating feeling that I was succeeding at something, so nothing else—not my health, my life, my form—mattered.

My doctor told me I could gain some weight. A sentence I would have once considered a dream come true. The girl who made that “fatty” album got exactly what she wished for. But she paid for it, too.

The girl who made that album could never have written a book. She didn’t have the confidence to publish weekly essays. Too insecure to hold meaningful friendships. Too preoccupied with herself to be fully present in life. Too consumed by control to enjoy much of anything.

These are the images I metaphorically scroll when I don’t feel like eating. Books written, friendships deepened, meals shared, ordinary days fully lived, dreams fulfilled—and suddenly, my stomach is growling and I am insatiable.

Pizza bagels and roasted broccoli, by ME.

I love you from my head tomatoes,

Gareth