u/WillyWankersFaptory_

tldr: my parents did everything they could to restrict my food intake, wondering if the reason there are so many ed-afflicted asian women is because of similar experiences

tw//weight

does anybody else have asian almond parents? i think the conflux of traditionally thin cultural beauty standards (east asian/chinese) and emphasis on control has boded terribly for my childhood.

ever since i was 13, my parents have been incessantly critical about my weight. when i passed a bmi of 19.1, they even took me to see a dietician because they believed i was on the track to morbid obesity. i was made to weigh myself and track calories every day. if i ate a surplus of 1100 cals, id be chastized for hours on end until i was in tears (of course, i became a master at covertly sneaking food).

everything revolved around weight. i wasn't allowed to have a phone until well into my sophomore year of high school because i had not lost enough weight to demonstrate i had enough discipline to use technological devices. they threatened me if i ate bananas or pasta. i was forbidden from ordering even diet soda since it stretched the stomach and increased one's appetite. even distant relatives and my much younger brother joined in on deriding me as gluttonous, ugly and lazy. my parents would also extoll the values of asian food and demonize other cultural fare (i live in canada), even though certain meals are just as fattening and greasy.

looking back now, im incredibly perplexed by this behaviour. it seems like their intent was to instill an eating disorder into me? i struggled severely with anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating for six straight years only to be mocked because my parents believe only hypersensitive people are susceptible to eds. now that i'm doing better, i'm hypervigilant when i meet other people who have decentered food or are fixated by diet culture, since it reminds me so much of the past--even though sometimes low appetites are entirely innocuous.

i think the real kicker is that my parents cannot even begin to guess my weight. when i was 125 lbs at 5'4 i was a whale. when i was 105 lbs, i had not lost any weight. it makes me believe their entire preoccupation is rather about being sadistic instead of grappling with eating disorders themselves.

just the other day, they confronted me upstairs and threw a tantrum about how i was overweight again, had always been since i was 13, and was surely going to develop gestational diabetes in the future. nobody would respect me in the workplace because my figure was a show of my utter incompetence and general disregard.

they used chinese women in the homeland as an example of what a normal weight for myself would be. it's an utter shame they don't realize the average woman there weighs more than me (it doesn't matter either way), and are immune to logos, pathos and ethos. they brought up how i would be an XXXL size. i fear many people have this misconception, but vanity sizing has been getting severe pushback on xhs for years. this is a land where diet culture and laxatives have consumed so many--it is honestly troglodytic to argue this point.

my mother has woken up in the middle of the night just to monitor what i was making in the kitchen for my work lunch. then she has the nerve to ask me why i dont eat in front of her, yet appear to be gaining weight. i have worked hard to have minimal negative connotations with fatness, but i'm troubled to see so many asians (women specifically) express limiting and archaic perspectives on food and fatphobia.

maybe they grew up like me, and that is just so sad. if so, you are so strong and so not alone. 💪 i can't wait for the day i move out and bake brown butter miso chocolate chip cookies three times every single day.