From the age of fourteen up to my twentieth year, I had a very poor relationship with food, with my body, and ultimately with my identity. It all began with an innocent attempt to silence others, and my own mind, about my “imperfect” body (yep, I was just a child). I got intertwined in the toxicity of diet culture and exercise onto which the label “fitness” was slapped. All that I knew about food and movement were quickly replaced by fitness myths. Food became the centre-piece of my life and I forgot how to live peacefully in my body, which only grew and grew as a result of puberty and binge eating. I was scared and alone – for six years, not a soul knew what I was going through because I was too ashamed of my state to tell anyone.

The sad truth is that this path I walked which thieved my teenage years, I did not walk alone. Many children – boys and girls – walked and continue to walk down that path, as they become men and women, husbands and wives, who are someone’s brother, someone’s sister, and then someone’s parent. Not everyone receive the right tools and guidance to escape this mental battlefield as the beauty and joys of living suffer for breath.