Attempt to Exercise Control
Losing nearly 50 pounds in three months, Peach was nearly eight feet deep to early. Eating disorders are often passed up as attention seeking, but Peach Friedman author of Diary of an Exercise Addict, reveals the truth behind living with an eating disorder and how it affects every aspect of someone’s life. Most of society is only informed on Anorexia and Bulimia. Little do people know, there are a variety of eating disorders (aka ED’s) and Peach Friedman expresses this through her experience from living with exercise bulimia.
In 2000, Peach Friedman, during her senior year in college, broke up with her boyfriend and plummeted herself into the ground by over exercising and restricting to gain control back. Peach recovered from exercise bulimia after a 6 to 10 yearlong journey of dealing with this mental illness. Her captivating book exposes her daily body image issues and her desire for recovery. Fully recovered and grown, she spends her time as a personal trainer and a wonderful mom of soon to be, two kids. “I didn’t recognize the girl…[now, driving home years later] I take a second look in the [car] mirror at my full, radiant cheeks, and I touch them…I can’t feel, I can’t bring back, I can’t conjure the sunken white face of the girl who didn’t eat, the girl who ran too far, the girl who wouldn’t stop running until she’d injured joints in every corner of her body and couldn’t walk up the stairs. I don’t relate anymore.”
Throughout reading the memoir, the references to future and past events were confusing at times, but Friedman structured each entry well especially inserting poetic rhythm every once in a while. Diary of an Exercise Addict is worth the read if this subject is an interest of yours or you are going through an eating disorder. Peach provides vivid detail and information on a topic that is very damaging and deadly to women and men across the world. She used restricting and purging food as a way of numbing her feelings. This book both displayed warnings of one with an eating disorder and the difficult, but rewarding journey of recovery. “As soon as we track ourselves to fight our bodies, to fight our natural size and shape, like I did, we embark on a battle destined for failure. It is impossible to win when we fight who we are.”
Peach Friedman does not glamorize this illness. She goes in depth about how this monster took control over her mind and slowly ripped her to shreds. This quick and emotional read, provides issues and experiences that every girl can relate to. Now, thirteen years later, our society welcomes a whole different level of stress and issues that ignite this mental illness. The constant pressure to be perfect, divorce, abuse and other problems in life are the main causes of eating disorders.
"An anorexic or bulimic often identifies a large percentage of her identity in her eating disorder or her body size. Usually, the younger the girl develops the eating disorder, the more difficult it is to recover, because she hasn't lived enough years to have an identity outside of that. Peach described a large concern for girls developing anorexia or bulimia because it usually occurs during their teen years. I believe this book is tremendously important to high school students because this controlling illness kills thousands of people every year. The scary part about eating disorders is the trickiness and sly part about it. Most parents are clueless and do not realize that their child has an eating disorder. Peach Friedman is an inspiration to those with dealing with eating disorders and body image issues. Being thin does not determine how beautiful you are. Peach Friedman did not fully go in depth with her ED, but she did an excellent job at offering hope to those that are struggling.