Louise O'Neill: We live in a society which applauds weight loss, no matter what the cause
Louise O'Neill, author. Photograph Moya Nolan
It was October 2006 when I was hospitalised because of my anorexia. The nurse weighed me, rifled through my suitcase for contraband – laxatives, measuring tape etc – before she removed the belt from my dressing gown, my razor. I’d been given a menu, told to order what I would eat the next day. I picked porridge for breakfast but as I lay there that night, trying to fall asleep, I panicked.
Why had I chosen porridge? They would make it with milk rather than water and dairy made me bloated, and would they expect me to have honey with it too? At 3am, I ran to the nurse’s station, begging them to change the form. I stood there in my pyjamas, weeping, all because the thought of eating a bowl of porridge filled me with abject fear.
