My love affair with food came after a long hatred of food. During high school, I had starved myself, though I didn’t think of it as starving. I lost 25 pounds, nearly a quarter of my body weight. With help from my family, I started as a senior to eat normally again. I was one of the lucky ones. I had survived.
But an anorexic struggles forever with self-image—she never thinks of herself as thin. When I entered college, I was a jangle of nerves. Interacting with the goal-oriented achievers on campus on a daily basis was daunting. Handling freedom and determining a major were enormous challenges. Even eating in a cafeteria was a trial. Especially for me.
Soon, however, I realized that other freshmen felt as I did. They feared putting on the Freshman 20. (Okay, I thought of it as the Freshman 20; I gather the weight gain is more often described as the Freshman 15.) Many went with the flow. They enjoyed their food; they would deal with the consequences later. Some didn’t fare so well. To control weight gain, one of my dormmates would binge-eat, then purge after every meal.
Though I struggled with my inner demons, I did my best not to revert to starvation tactics. It didn’t help that my freshman boyfriend, who was as lanky as a strip of lean bacon, would grab my “love handles” and ask, what’re these? Funny? Not in the least.
In my sophomore year, I was a Dollie. I can remember going to Dollie “camp,” in which we came to Palo Alto a week early and lived with families on the same street. One day we were in the backyard, all in swimsuits. A teen boy, a friend of my camp “brother,” asked something about the “pregnant Dollie.” He was referring to me. It would be 20 years before I found out that I was allergic to gluten—and finally understood why I had looked bloated a lot of the time and always felt “fat” as a teen. (Since I eliminated gluten from my diet, I have became leaner, for the right reasons.) The boy’s comment sent me into a tailspin. I reverted to old behaviors. I always watched what I ate. I suffered stomach distress.
Then, during my junior year when I spent time at Stanford in Germany, I found my inner confidence. I started to feel comfortable in my own skin, no matter what I looked like. My love of food grew as I traveled Europe tasting and testing. Freshly made cheese. Freshly baked bread. I will never forget my German family’s Black Forest cherry cake.
Since then, I have become a gourmet. I truly enjoy food—and myself, as well.
Daryl Wood Gerber, ’74, is the author, most recently, of Final Sentence. She hastens to add that if you or your child is struggling with an eating disorder or constraining food allergies, please seek help.
