If you’re a fan of Taylor Swift then you’ll be used to the sensation that she is on some level able to look into your soul and explain your pain to you. Usually the clairvoyance that has endeared her to millions of people all over the world is predominantly based around romantic experiences. But in her new Netflix documentary, Miss Americana, she turns her honesty on her experience of disordered eating, explaining a relationship with food and her body in a way that anyone who has struggled with disordered eating will understand.
It’s extraordinary how universal the struggle with disordered eating is, whether you’re a multi-platinum record holder, or a ‘normal’ person. She says: ‘I tend to get triggered by something – whether it’s a picture of me where I feel like my tummy looked too big, or someone said that I looked pregnant or something – and that will trigger me to just starve a little bit. Just stop eating.’
Being photographed regularly is an occupational hazard in her industry but also a feeling that many of us will know. It’s not ‘normal’ to punish yourself with starvation after seeing an unflattering photo of yourself but it’s certainly very common.
Eating disorders are about far more than just a desire to be thin, something that Taylor is also candid about, saying, ‘my relationship with food was exactly the same psychology that I applied to everything else in my life. If I was given a pat on the head, I registered that as good. If I was given a punishment, I registered that as bad.’ Describing fitting into sample sizes at photo shoots, she says, ‘I looked at that as a pat on the head. You register that enough times, and you just start to accommodate everything towards praise and punishment, including your own body.’
Anyone who suffered from an eating disorder will recognise Swift’s typical tendency towards denial. ‘I would have defended it to anybody who said “I’m concerned about you”’ she says. ‘I don’t think you know you’re doing that when you’re doing it gradually. There’s always some standard of beauty that you’re not meeting. Because if you’re thin enough, then you don’t have that ass that everybody wants, but if you have enough weight on you to have an ass, then your stomach isn’t flat enough. It’s all just fucking impossible.’
Just like the heartbreak she has previously written about, struggles with food and body image are an incredibly common form of pain: BEAT estimates that 1.5 million people in the UK are currently affected by an eating disorder, and even more experience disordered eating. As Taylor’s situation shows, disordered eating does not always have to fall into the specific pathology of anorexia or bulimia in order to take a significant toll on both your mental and physical health.
If you’re struggling with food or body image, you can contact BEAT here or call them on 0808 801 0677.