News U Can Use: What No One Tells You About Being a Teenage Boy with Anorexia”

"I have struggled with food and body image all my life. In fifth grade, I hid underneath a hotel bed for hours to evade being seen in a swimsuit by my own family. Before the largest cross-country meet of my middle school career, I cooked and ate an entire bag of pancake batter — to “fuel my nerves.” By the time I was a sophomore in high school, I had been waging a silent war against sporadic “dieting” for years.

Things only worsened in the fall of 2016, when, at age 16, I joined the local swim team. I had been “dieting” for almost a month, eating as little as possible for as long as possible. I may have reveled in the loose-fitting swim trunks for a time, yes, but I soon quit the team after my family could no longer afford to pay the membership fee. Then my dad switched jobs and my brother, the most courageous and inspiring person I know, came out to our Catholic family.

Stress levels were at an all-time high in my household. The last thing I could worry about was food.

Soon after I quit the swim team, my disordered eating peaked. I vividly remember the day I trudged up another daunting flight of stairs at my high school in Great Falls, Montana, feeling only one emotion: pride. For three days and counting, I had somehow managed to subsist on barely eating anything. As a result, my head was clear, I felt thin, and it was all just difficult enough to keep me distracted from my family troubles...” 

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