I was a fourteen-year-old aspiring ballerina when my mother cautiously relayed my ballet instructor’s so-called constructive critique: “Lose two pounds, and you’ll be perfect.”
Lose two pounds and achieve perfection? Easy enough, I thought. I stepped on the scale and discovered I carried 109 pounds on my five-foot-seven frame. Until then, I’d had no idea what I weighed.
I became obsessed with calorie counting and consumed no breakfast, a ritualistic two-hundred-calorie lunch, and just enough dinner to avoid drawing attention to myself. Two weeks later the scale read ninety-eight pounds. Although I had no energy, my friends were jealous, and my instructors were clearly pleased.
