For several years, I used calories as a yardstick by which I could measure the success of my day. I didn’t know what a calorie actually was, or how one was calculated, but that didn’t matter. Low calories, good day; high calories, bad.
Calories, ironically, consumed me. Food shopping became a long, drawn-out affair – slowly making my way along each aisle comparing labels on the bottom of packets.
Mine is not a unique story. Last year, NHS Digital reported that more than half of England’s older teenagers (58%) could have an eating disorder, up from 45% in 2017. The study found that among girls aged 17 to 19 the problem is even more acute, with 76.4% meeting criteria that would prompt investigations for eating disorders, compared to 60.5% four years earlier.
