Bulimia: Attempting to live up to impossible beauty standards
“If you are not skinny, you are not beautiful.”

Harmful comments such as these are something Rindorii* hears on a daily basis.

The 19-year-old college student, who was diagnosed with bulimia seven years ago, shares that her condition began in childhood when she would constantly be body-shamed for being chubbier than those around her.

“They made it a point that being skinny is everything and that you are worthless if you’re not skinny and beautiful.

“It’s hard to think otherwise when everyone around you keeps degrading your self-worth, and at such an impressionable age, I believed them,” she says.

Growing up, Rindorii attempted to lose weight through exercise.

However, when this did not work, she eventually turned to vomiting her food after eating.

“I was frustrated because no matter how much I exercised, I wouldn’t lose any weight, until I realised the only way I wouldn’t gain weight was to physically rid my body of food before it starts absorbing it,” she shares.

From then onwards, it became a daily routine to eat and then vomit, as the fear of gaining weight, guilt and self-blame became second nature to her.

“Because I always feel the urge to purge after eating, it’s difficult to control my emotions when I can’t immediately excuse myself to go to the bathroom.

“At first, it was difficult to actively force my food out, but over time, my body has adapted enough that just the thought of eating makes me feel like the food is already trying to exit my system – vomiting my food out has become as daily a habit as brushing my teeth or going to sleep.”

Even now as an adult who firmly stands up for those who are wrongfully made fun of for not conforming to beauty standards, the body image Rindorii has of herself is still shaped by the perceptions from her childhood. It can be easy to dislike your body if you have been conditioned to think that only a certain body type is beautiful and you don’t have that body type. — Filepic posed by model.

“I’m aware that it isn’t healthy and that I am still a worthy person regardless of my appearance, but it’s not easy to change the way I perceive myself after having it drilled into me since young,” she says.

She observes that social media serves as a constant reminder that there is always someone ready to undermine your worth based solely on appearance, and that tall and skinny is what society upholds as the standard of beauty.

“It’s very dangerous that younger audiences nowadays chase after the celebrities they look up to for having a certain body type.

“When I was younger, there would always be a new starvation fad disguised as a diet trend, usually endorsed by prominent faces.

“I used to think about how I just absolutely needed to follow this ‘diet’ as it’s supposedly how my favourite celebrity lost all her weight and became skinny.”

Rindorii emphasises that it’s very harmful to promote a certain body type as ideal and that a person can potentially achieve it by starvation or other unhealthy means.

“You’re teaching kids to be insecure about themselves and that they have to do whatever it takes to be skinny, regardless of the body type they were born with.”

She believes that there is a deeply-rooted mindset in society that being skinnier makes you more beautiful, and that you would have no problems if you are beautiful.

She also says: “There’s a misconception that it’s impossible to have an eating disorder – or mental illness for that matter – if you’re not stick-skinny or very fat.

“When I tell people I have bulimia, they bring up how I don’t have any issues despite my diagnosis – all because I’m not what they envision someone with an eating disorder to look like.

“It’s impossible to stop everyone from assuming, so what we can do is to try to open up and share our experiences, as we can only hope that people are kind enough to listen to our struggles and try to understand.”

One of the goals Rindorii has is to reshape her mindset into being gentle and kind to herself and her body.

“I’m trying to learn to accept my body for being the way it is, and confiding in my loved ones really helps to ground myself when I’m feeling insecure.

“I can’t stop myself from being bloated sometimes, and I can’t help that I naturally have more fat distributed here or there, so instead, I have to learn to appreciate myself and my body that’s held up to so much pain and struggle all these years.”

*Pseudonym used to protect her privacy
Mind,Eating disorder,bulimia
A frequent trigger for this eating disorder is a belief that you need to be thin to be beautiful.