I know a girl who buys three chocolate chip muffins and two brownies at Schwemm's with a colossal bottle of water. She is emaciated, eyes feverishly-bright and eats alone. She comes back in about half an hour for a sandwich and a couple of Toll House ice cream sandwiches and another bottle of water. She does this every night.
I know a girl who wakes up at 6 a.m. to jog for two hours, only to run for two hours more on the treadmill in the afternoon, only to repeat this grueling routine every day. Rinse and repeat-all in efforts to wash away that fat, thigh jiggle, butt wiggle, tummy rolls, and double chins, much of it imagined.
I know these girls. You know these girls. They are in our classes, eat (or pretend to eat) in Valentine with us and live with us. We see them and we worry about their protruding bones, sunken cheeks and sagging clothing. We are afraid to talk to them, perhaps because we feel our words will somehow shatter their fragile frames. Some of us may be one of these girls.
We know who they are because this is a small place and rumors ignite like explosives. We observe each other because Valentine is the perfect venue for surreptitious and not-so-subtle ogling. It's the place to see and be seen. And even if you want to remain invisible, it is next to impossible. Even if you seclude yourself in the dark, ignored corners of the second floor, you're bound to run into someone you know.
Girls are especially guilty of this spying, a kind of competitive surveillance with such mental notes as, "WHAT is she EATING?" or "She should NOT be eating that." If you don't have the physique of Halle Berry, you are up for evaluation if your tray isn't brimming with leafy greens and rolling with boiled eggs. An indulgent sundae is a sign of moral weakness, only retractable if you are wearing warm-ups, indicating that you attended a requisite pre-dinner gym session. A guy enters with the same sundae and multiple girls look at it longingly, scrape the last remaining gobs of hummus off their plates and sigh.
It is ironic that Valentine is buffet-style cuisine-if it could be called that-because the women at this school are persuaded to deprive themselves in the midst of such a wide array of foods. It seems that food and females are inversely proportional; the more there is, the less we feel like we can eat. Many of us, myself included, are hopelessly stuck in the salad bar rut, flirting with tofu and balsamic vinegar, while the guys sweep by with enough food to feed a small nation.
I realize I am making broad, perhaps unfounded, generalizations. We all have friends who eat whatever they want, whenever they want, who view food as a pleasure, not as the enemy. They are "the lucky ones," the ones with amazing, rodent metabolisms or waif-like frames, the unattainable body ideals of our culture sliding off their consciences easily. But the rest of us-too many of us-have to keep an ever-vigilant eye on that food, in case our grumbling stomachs betray us and we end up eating something on the culinary blacklist.
Too many of us think of exercise in terms of calories burned. How many minutes on the elliptical cross-trainer to burn off that cup of frozen yogurt? How many minutes on the bike to eradicate that congo bar which has undoubtedly already planted itself on my thighs? How many repetitions? How many times? How long? How little?
Most importantly, can I eat? Food has attained this Godzilla-like status in the female mind, often overpowering and belligerent. Eating has always been a ritual for both men and women, but only relatively recently has it become such an unforgiving gauntlet for us. Everything becomes a potential suspect, guilty of hyper-caloric crimes. It is sad that instead of men being the bullies, it is other women who "keep each other in line," so much that it becomes unclear just who we are trying to impress.
We claim that we diet for men, pinning it on their insatiable desires for Anna Kournikova and Britney-types, but sometimes it seems females diet for each other in a silent competition of who can eat the healthiest. Just as women "size up" each other with catty glances when they enter a party, the same thing happens when we carry our pink trays out into the critics' arena. Potentially bumping into someone isn't the only danger of rounding that hazardous corner in the annex of Valentine; there is also the watchful gaze of appraising eyes.
On "girls' nights in"-those nights full of "Sixteen Candles" and "Clueless," sloppy pajamas and manicures, those eulogized rituals of womanhood-we invariably feel pressured to pig out, eating ridiculous amounts of food. All the forbidden stuff banned during daylight hours-pints of Haagen Daaz, bags of Doritos, crushed boxes of calzones-is consumed guiltily under the guise of darkness and away from the prying eyes of men. Normally eating so much is a felony and we all need partners in crime. Often we feel filthy and disgusting after such greasy gatherings. Most of us head to the gym the next day, hoping that a half hour of copious sweat will cleanse us of our gastronomic sins. Some of us head to the bathroom.
Instead of supporting each other, why do females need to tear each other down? We sustain and often applaud each other's unhealthy eating and exercising habits and if we are not active partisans, we turn the other way, as if we don't know what's happening. We claim ignorance or at least tell ourselves there is nothing we can do. But there is so much we can do. We can lessen, if not completely halt, the petty criticism and intra-female pressure. Both indulgence and asceticism should be encouraged, but in moderation. If someone feels like she ate too much, we shouldn't tell her to run to the gym immediately to burn it off. Chill. Sit down. Digest. Not every piece of food you consume has to be paid for in sweat.
I know that by now we are sick of hearing about eating disorders. Okay, so one out of five girls on college campuses suffer from bulimia. Blah blah blah. The very banality of distorted body image has dulled us and we are blinded by indifference. But nothing can dull the pain of walking in on three girls throwing up in various bathrooms this year alone, or of watching a friend shrivel away. I know some of these girls. You know some of these girls. And we all know how to help these girls.