Ava's Story
Senior at the University of California, Santa Barbara
Studying Sociology and Spanish
A Note Before Reading*
Ava shares openly about restrictive eating, eating disorders, self-harm, thoughts of purging, body checking, and the impact of harmful messages about food and body image. This story is honest and personal, and some parts may feel especially sensitive or familiar.
Why I'm Sharing my Story:
I’m sharing my story because I know how isolating it can feel when food, body image, and the pressure to look a certain way take over your thoughts.
Recovery is not always easy or straightforward, but having support, honest conversations, and the right education can make such a difference.
You are so much more than how your body looks or what you ate today. Asking for help does not make you weak.
You are Not Alone!
If parts of Ava’s story feel familiar, you deserve support too. Consider reaching out to a licensed therapist, registered dietitian, physician, or another trusted person in your life.
Fuel Her provides education and community, but it is not a replacement for individualized medical, nutritional, or mental-health care.
If you feel that you may be in immediate danger or may harm yourself, contact emergency services or a crisis-support resource in your area.
How it Started
For as long as I can remember, I have had a really difficult and distorted relationship with food and my body. I was easily influenced by the videos I saw online and by the things I was told by the people around me.
I remember hearing things like, “Don’t lift weights—it will make you bulky,” and, “Lower calorie is always better.” At the time, I believed those ideas were true. They sounded like normal health advice, and I did not realize how much they were shaping the way I viewed food, exercise, and my body.
I even participated in an eight-week weight-loss challenge at the gym I was going to because my mom encouraged me to do it with her. It included daily workouts and meals that were carefully measured to stay within a certain number of calories, always prioritizing lower-calorie foods.
By the time I went to the final weigh-in, I felt so tired and weak. When the person at the weighing station saw me, he immediately told me that I was too young to be participating and that I should not have been allowed to do the challenge (I was 15 years old).
Looking back, that should have been a sign that something was wrong. But at the time, I had already started believing that eating less, exercising more, and becoming smaller meant I was becoming healthier.
When “Healthy” Became Harmful
During COVID-19, I fell into a rabbit hole of trying to eat as little as possible and exercise as much as I could to lose weight.
Everything I saw on Instagram seemed to encourage these habits. I was constantly shown recipes that made the foods I normally ate lower in calories. It also did not help that people around me believed many of the same ideas and encouraged them too.
At the time, none of it seemed dangerous. It felt disciplined. It felt like I was doing everything “right.”
Eventually, I was eating far too little and became extremely scared of anything I considered high in calories. I stopped eating nut butters and was even afraid to have a piece of toast.
I would get excited when I found extremely low-calorie foods at the grocery store because I felt like I could eat them without feeling as guilty.
At night, I sometimes had to lie on my bedroom floor because my stomach hurt so badly.
I used apps like MyFitnessPal to see how little I was eating, and I even made videos throughout the day to track my food. Seeing how little I had eaten made me feel accomplished, even though physically and emotionally I was falling apart.
I hated my appearance, and it seemed like nothing would ever be good enough. My self-confidence was at an all-time low, and I felt completely stuck.
When Concern Felt Like a Compliment
Eventually, my mom became worried about me. She would look at my body and tell me that I looked “too thin” or “unhealthy.”
Instead of hearing those words as warnings, I took them as compliments. A part of me secretly loved hearing them because I believed they meant I was succeeding. I thought becoming smaller meant I was becoming healthier.
At the same time, I was extremely weak, tired, and had almost no motivation to do anything. My mental health was also getting worse because my mood each day depended on what I saw in the mirror.
I experienced multiple joint dislocations and had to undergo major surgeries. I did not have enough muscle strength to properly support my joints, but I still continued believing that the way I was living was normal.
I would save pictures of celebrities I saw in the media and use them as reminders of what I thought my goal should be.
Comments from family members could make those beliefs even stronger. During one family trip, my grandmother grabbed my wrist and said, “You are so tiny! I remember when I was as small as you.”
To her, it may have felt like an innocent comment. To me, it felt like a reward.
Moments like that fueled my negative habits and made me believe that being smaller made me healthier, more successful, or more worthy, even as my fear of food became almost unbearable.
Living by Food Rules
I stopped eating cake at birthdays and would always choose the smallest portion possible. I cried so many nights because I wanted to overcome these fears, but I did not know how.
After COVID-19, I began going through a cycle of eating more than I normally allowed myself and then feeling extremely guilty about it. I would become so hungry that, in the moment, I could not think about anything else. Afterwards, I would regret what I had eaten for the rest of the night and sometimes think about making myself throw up.
It felt like the cycle never ended. I was constantly battling what I saw online, what I had been taught about food, and what my body was telling me it needed.
Food took up so much of my mental space. Every meal felt like something I had to control, and what I ate could determine how I felt about myself for the rest of the day.
Even when I knew these rules were hurting me, they were extremely difficult to break.
Realizing This Was Not Normal
As I continued through high school, I slowly started to realize that the way I was living was far from normal or healthy.
My therapist diagnosed me with multiple eating disorders and helped me work through both my relationship with food and my self-harming habits. I began trying every day to break the “rules” I had been taught, even when the messages around me still seemed to say otherwise.
My mom was also beginning to learn. My older sister struggled with a severe eating disorder and eventually went into treatment, where my mom attended weekly meetings as part of her recovery.
Through those meetings, my mom began to question many of the unrealistic expectations and false rules she had once believed about food, bodies, and health. She started changing the way she spoke about these things and became an important part of helping my sister recover.
That change did not undo everything that had happened, but it showed me that people can learn, grow, and begin to break harmful patterns.
What Recovery Actually Looks Like
I would describe recovery as an ever-changing process. Some days are amazing, and food takes up almost none of my headspace. I can eat more freely without fear and feel more like myself.
Other days are much harder. I may feel tempted to count calories in my Notes app or take pictures of my body so I can compare how it looks later.
Recovery has never been a straight line for me. It is something I continue to work through every day by noticing old thoughts, challenging them, and trying not to let them control me.
Talking to friends, working with a therapist, and meeting regularly with a nutrition professional have all helped me continue unlearning the ideas that shaped so much of my relationship with food and my body.
It is still extremely difficult, especially when harmful messages are advertised everywhere and treated as normal. Many of our parents were taught the same diet rules and body expectations that they later passed down to us.
That does not make the impact harmless, but it helps explain why these patterns can continue across generations.
Breaking that cycle takes education, honesty, support, and a lot of patience.
Appreciating What My Body Can Do
Today, I am constantly working toward becoming the healthiest and strongest version of myself, not the smallest one.
I want to nourish my body without worrying about whether I have “earned” food or how many calories I have eaten. I want to be able to look in the mirror and love the person looking back at me instead of immediately searching for something to criticize.
Living with a disability has also completely changed the way I think about my body. I have experienced what it feels like not to be able to walk or fully use my arms, and those experiences have made me realize how much our bodies do for us every day.
My body is so much more than the way it looks. It allows me to move, connect with the people I love, experience the world, and live my life.
I am incredibly grateful for what my body can do. My job is not to punish it or constantly try to make it smaller. My job is to nourish it, strengthen it, listen to it, and love it.
Why I’m Sharing My Story
Even though I have struggled deeply with food and body image, I have also learned that there are so many resources and people who can help.
So many girls and women struggle with these thoughts but are afraid to say them out loud. Asking for help does not make you weak. Working with a therapist, registered dietitian, physician, or another qualified professional can truly change your life.
Getting the right education is also so important. The messages young girls hear about food, exercise, health, and their bodies can stay with them for years. Something that seems like a harmless comment or piece of advice can completely change the way someone views herself.
That is why Fuel Her’s mission matters so much to me. Girls and women deserve credible information before social media, diet culture, or fear teaches them what “healthy” is supposed to look like.
I want others to feel comfortable asking questions, challenging harmful advice, and reaching out for support when they need it.
Most of all, I want people to know that there is so much more to life than worrying about how many calories you ate that day or how your stomach looks in the mirror.
You deserve a life that is bigger than food rules.
You deserve support.
You deserve nourishment.
And you do not have to go through this alone.