Stage Your Voice participant
Alicia
"Even if I only hit one person with my number ..."
- Alicia
Eating disorder? No ya!
Since I was thirteen, I have been dealing with an eating disorder. I know that now. Time after time my doctor told me it wasn't so bad, that it was all in my head, that it was part of being an adolescent. My mother once told the doctor: doesn't she have an eating disorder? We were rebuffed. On the one hand it was a relief; I must be acting out. Nothing wrong. Head in the sand.
On the other hand, I knew I had a problem and wanted so badly to be helped. I felt my body deteriorating. I was tired and weak. I sometimes lived on two tangerines a day. A substitute doctor once said: watch out that you don't get an eating disorder ... Another confirmation that I didn't really have a problem yet. And I kept up appearances. This allowed the eating disorder to run its course for years."
Cliché image
There are a lot of misconceptions about eating disorders. I think the biggest one is that it's always about white teenage girls who are way too thin. It's very dangerous that that image prevails, because as a result, eating disorders are often missed in people who don't fit that picture. I was a white, young girl, but because I wasn't incredibly thin, the eating disorder was able to run its course undisturbed. I already didn't fit the picture. Boys, men, people of color and older women also run into this. With me in the group was a woman in her 30s with two children. Society needs to let go of the cliché image of people with eating disorders.
We have all created the cliché image and so we will have to break it down together. The media play an important role in this. There is such a one-sided image. So much ignorance. These days I find it very interesting to learn about this. Learning about it makes me stronger. With my song 'Do you hear me' I want to make people more aware that there are various eating disorders and that they do not all present the same image.
Follow Alicia her journey to the stage!
Alicia (21) has been battling eating disorders since she was 13 years old. Something that for years was not taken seriously by her family doctor because she did not fit into "the picture.
With her song "Do You Hear Me?" she wants to make people more aware that there are various eating disorders and that they do not all present the same picture.
