Food Isn’t the Enemy

I first learned about National Eating Disorders Awareness (NEDA) Week (February 26 -March 3, 2012) on Gena Hamshaw’s fantastic blog, Choosing Raw.  The mission of NEDA Awareness Week “is to ultimately prevent eating disorders and body image issues while reducing the stigma surrounding eating disorders and improving access to treatment. Eating disorders are serious, life-threatening illnesses – not choices – and it’s important to recognize the pressures, attitudes and behaviors that shape the disorder.”

It’s no secret that diabetes and eating disorders often go hand-in-hand.  Though I’ve never had an eating disorder,  many times I feel like diabetes makes me a disordered eater, simply because so much of my focus is on food and limitations.   There are so many things I won’t eat now, even if I’m hungry, and food is a giant issue for me.  I do my best not to think of food in a negative sense – as something that will cause me to have high blood sugar.  I try to think of food in a good way – as something that nourishes me, makes me strong, and makes me feel good.  But there are many days when it’s hard not to view food as an enemy.  Healthy eating is one of the keys to living well with diabetes.  Let’s not forget that.   

For more information on the National Eating Disorders Association see here.  The theme of this year’s NEDA awareness week is”Everybody Knows Somebody” because awareness of eating disorders is spreading.  Find out how you can be involved.

Jessica Apple

Jessica Apple grew up in Houston. She studied Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan, and completed an MA in the same field at the Hebrew University. She began to write and publish short stories while a student, and has continued to write essays and fiction while raising her three sons (and many pets).

View Author Blog

Jessica Apple

Jessica Apple grew up in Houston. She studied Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan, and completed an MA in the same field at the Hebrew University. She began to write and publish short stories while a student, and continues to write essays and fiction while raising her three sons (and many pets). Jessica’s work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Financial Times Magazine, The Southern Review, The Bellevue Literary Review, Tablet Magazine, and elsewhere. She is the diabetes correspondent for The Faster Times. In 2009 she and her husband, both type 1 diabetics, founded A Sweet Life, where she serves as editor-in-chief. Jessica loves spending time with her sons, cooking with her husband, playing with her cats, reading, biking, drinking coffee, and whenever possible, taking a nap. Follow Jessica on Twitter (@jessapple)