When it comes to eating and image disorders, the lion’s share of attention goes to the body. So, it appears, there is no attention given to the face. Yet, within the eating disorder context, my negative experience with my face was just as painful as the unforgiving perception of my body. And it started early.
As an overweight child, several adults repeatedly made the same comment. Perhaps you’ve had it spoken to you.
“... ‘You have such a pretty face, if you’d just lose some weight…’ This comment dangled the hope of beauty, and yet placed the blame on me... for not achieving it. It was my fault...”
Editor’s Note: Excerpts taken from Cruse’s book, Thin Enough: My Spiritual Journey through the Living Death of an Eating Disorder
“Such a pretty face...”
To me, it is the epitome of the backhanded compliment. It has built-in judgment, expectation and pressure present, and waits on the owner of said “pretty face” to “correct” the situation. But sometimes, these ‘compliments’ result in an eating disorder. That’s how I responded, anyway.
For each time that comment was made, I heard I was inferior. After all, adults made this statement. They knew what they were talking about. Certainly, they couldn’t be wrong. Therefore, I had to be.
As childhood grew into adolescence, I constantly dieted, attempting to be what I was “supposed to” look like. I had a gun-shy reaction each time someone called me pretty. I braced to hear the face qualifier. I waited for the “helpful” advice that the diet-and-fitness plan offered. I could never just rest in the pretty remark. There were always strings attached.
I eventually dropped a significant amount of weight. After losing weight, I believed I was reinvented. I was treated differently. And no “such a pretty face” comment was uttered. But with anger and other toxic unresolved issues driving my behavior, I eventually morphed into my bulimic phase, which, very quickly, brought on weight gain. “Such a pretty face” now roared back, putting me in my place for ever even daring believe I could be worthy. My face was out there, changing, for everyone to see. I could not avoid that.
The English proverb asserts “the eyes are the window of the soul.”
But, that is the tip of the iceberg concerning disordered eating and image issues, for we often underestimate the face’s importance in its telltale symptoms of a troubled individual. Written here, on his/her face, we can also see the afflicted mind, personal will and unhealthy emotions which drive the life-threatening disease. As hallmarks of an eating disorder, we look for the underweight body. But how much time and attention are spent considering the face?
With anorexia, it may be easier to detect the disorder, as, again, we go to the obvious thin criteria. A face is just too gaunt to be thought of as healthy or unaffected.
But bulimia and EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise specified) may be more easily disguised in matters of the face. Still, symptoms which point to disorder are there, if we know what to look for.
Medical experts studying eating disorders confirm swelling and puffiness exist because of swollen salivary glands (parotid glands), which is indicative of purging. So, to focus only on the body, at the exclusion of the face, for a valid diagnosis, is to do a disservice to the sufferer.
The disorder involves the entirety of the person: spirit, mind, body and yes, face. Do we take that into account as we each comfortably associate for ourselves what an “eating disorder” looks like?
There’s more to disordered eating and image issues than what we assume. And, when we make any cavalier statement about someone’s appearance, be it body or face, we can never tell just how that may trigger an individual. “Such a pretty face” can be the beginning of a painful, difficult lifetime of self-rejection or oppressive qualification.
“Such a pretty face” is not a harmless comment and we need to stop seeing it as such.
Author and speaker Sheryle Cruse tackles harmful food, weight, value, and image issues which are often found within disordered eating. She does this through her book, Thin Enough: My Spiritual Journey Through the Living Death of an Eating Disorder and her articles for faith-based and recovery-focused publications. Cruse lives in Minnesota with her husband, Russell, and their two rambunctious felines.
