WHY DO I BINGE-EAT?

Grace Ackroyd describes how her fraught battle with food continues to blight her adult life

- GRACE ACKROYD

A few months ago, I was tidying up after my youngest son’s birthday party. In between stacking the dishwasher, I ate some leftover pizza and cake. For a parent, this is pretty standard; often my meals are made up of stuff my children have left behind. Something that afternoon switched, however. I was tired and had a never-ending to-do list, and no one around to help.

Before I knew it, I was reaching into the freshly stocked snack cupboard. No matter that I don’t particularly like custard creams, Penguin bars and Doritos. When I binge, I barely taste anything. It’s simply about getting through whatever’s in front of me in the quickest time possible. I obliterate the food and, for a while, the uncomfortable feelings. That was the last time I binged. It was over in less than 10 minutes, leaving me with a horrible aftertaste and nothing to look forward to but bedtime.

Lockdown worries

When lockdown descended, my greatest fear beyond friends and family becoming ill was this: the disordered eating that has dogged me much of my life would return with force. Being stuck at home with ample food and rising family tensions could easily send me back to solo midnight feasts in the kitchen.

I was bulimic as a teenager and have sporadically binge-eaten in adulthood. ‘I’m completely fine now,’ I often tell myself because, at 42, consigning my problems to the past is a way of avoiding certain fears. That my boyfriend will see a crazy, unlovable woman; that friends will think I’m making a big deal out of nothing because I’m slim and eat normally in front of them; that my children will think I’m an unfit mother.