I have a large appetite. At dinner, I usually go back for seconds and often thirds. Most people looking at a man’s and my plate would assume mine is his and his is mine. The amount of calories it takes for me to survive and function is over twice as much as most diets marketed toward women recommend.

Why do I mention this?

People reading may wonder “Is she trying to brag?” or “Does she think she’s not like the other girls?”

No.

I mention it because in today’s world, where women’s body trends oscillate rapidly between slim thick and heroin chic faster than you can say “MyFitnessPal,” being a girl with a large appetite carries with it a level of importance and moral value that, though undeserved, is impossible to ignore. And the barometer for measuring whether a woman’s large appetite is admirable or shameful?

Her size.

If a thin woman can down a burger, fries, and a beer she is lauded for being able to keep up with the men around her. If another woman does the same thing but she is above a size US 16 she’s seen as gluttonous and is looked down upon.

Now, I have battled both anorexia and bulimia at various points in my life, and in that time I’ve done my fair share of reading and writing on the topics of eating disorders, body positivity, and the rampant anti-fat bias that plagues society. (Did you know it is legal in 49 of the United States to discriminate against someone based on their weight?)

At 17, shortly after I was hospitalized for anorexia, I blew through Body Positive Power by Megan Jayne Crabbe and was introduced to the fact that a damning majority of diets fail and that we have far less control over our bodies and appetites than we’d like to think we do.

At 19 I devoured Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fatphobia by Sabrina Strings and learned about the storied relationship between the Western world’s overwhelming anti-fatness and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

In my early 20’s I became obsessed with Aubrey Gordon, creator of Your Fat Friend, and studied What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat and “You Just Need to Lose Weight” and 19 Other Myths About Fat People, along with every episode of a podcast she co-hosts called Maintenance Phase.

And so on and so forth.

With this research I have become no stranger to the fact that, regardless of how I personally feel about my body and how much I have struggled with it, and the fact that my BMI (don’t even get me started on the origins of that) puts me in the overweight category, as a straight-sized woman I benefit from thin privilege. Beyond that, I benefit from white privilege, able-bodied privilege, and cisgender privilege.

I point this out because it matters.

Most eating disorder recovery programs are catered to my exact demographic, and that demographic also is the one most portrayed in media representations of eating disorders.

I want to acknowledge this because I know my journey, no matter how hard it was for me, is a thousand times either than it is for people in more marginalized bodies and the last thing I’d want to do is join the chorus of thin recovered women shouting, “if I can do it, anyone can do it!” as if we’re all facing the same beast.

We aren’t.

And for people who don’t recover into thin bodies, of which there are many, there can be real-world consequences like barriers to healthcare, housing, and employment.

Even so, learning to honor my large appetite has been an arduous journey. As I mentioned before, I am technically overweight which is often treated as one of the worst things a person can be. I’m larger than any boyfriend (or girlfriend) I’ve had. I still get concerned comments from loved ones about me eating or weighing too much. And for these reasons, being a woman with an unapologetically large appetite is, in its own small way, revolutionary (if only for me).

I used to be so ashamed of my appetite.

In middle and high school I refused to eat in front of anybody (especially if I had a crush on them), instead opting to sit in the bathroom to have my Lara bar. It was as if I didn’t want people to know I eat, that I am someone who needs food. As if I would be seen as stronger for being someone who can resist my appetite.

And I remember just a few months ago hosting a dinner with two of my friends and while both of them were on their first plates, I had already gone back for thirds. I thought that everyone must be thinking about how much I was eating, and I apologized.

“Sorry, I’m just so hungry.”

Why was I sorry? For having a body? And for that body needing food? For my body looking different than both of my friends?

I didn’t understand why, years into recovery, my body was still not satisfied with anything under 2,500 calories a day. Why was it so hard to go back to restriction (which, at times, I have tried to do)? Why couldn’t my body tolerate starving any longer? And why was I eating so much more than everyone around me?

Truthfully, the “why” doesn’t matter for any of those questions.

What matters is the fact that even despite those questions and apologies for being human ping ponging through my head, I continued to eat when I was hungry.

I continued to honor my appetite in recovery even though I knew I was gaining weight, even though I knew I was overweight, and even though my new “normal” appetite was significantly larger than it used to be.

I ate even when my comments about being hungry were met by family members with “just have some water.”

And for that reason, I am proud. Because I honored my hunger, something which I genuinely don’t think I had done until age 5, the year before I began getting bullied for being larger than the other first graders.

Yes, I am a girl who eats a lot and I wear that like a badge of honor because I know how hard I had to fight to get to this point. I don’t take it for granted, the fact that I love food and my body does too. I realize now that every body is different, and the amount of food we each need to support our bodies is different too. Beautifully, wonderfully different. I know so many women who deny themselves their appetites, and I have made a deal with myself to break that cycle and, in turn, hopefully help the women around me break it too.

Because I know what it’s like to be around women who constantly talk about how awful their bodies are, how big they look and how shameful that is, how “bad” they’re being for having a dessert (which they’re sharing with the rest of the table). I know how exhausting it is to feel like people are paying attention to your body and how it changes and how much you’re eating, and how devastating it feels when you find out it’s not in your head, they really are making note of those changes.

I don’t want to be one of those women.

I want to be the type of woman who bakes with little ones and actually eats what we make and doesn’t teach children that their appetites are something to be feared and forced into submission.

I want to be the type of woman where you can say after dinner, “I don’t think that was enough, do you think we could go get ice cream?” and I say “Yes, absolutely!” and we both get the flavor we want and the amount of scoops we want and no one has to apologize for it.

I want to be the type of woman who models for those around her that even if you have a bad body image day, or even if you ate a lot the day before, or even if you haven’t exercised in weeks, you still deserve to eat and take up space and that those aren’t rights you have to earn.

And no, there isn’t a whole lot I can do about the state of the world and the suffocating beasts that are diet culture and anti-fat bias. I can’t do anything about already-thin celebrities going on Ozempic and pretending they got their figure from “hard work and eating right.” (I also don’t think their bodies are our business as much as we make it, but I understand that the influence of such behaviors is felt by the public regardless.) What I can do is be the change that I want to see, as cliche as it sounds. I can share my story to you. I can elevate the voices of those who deserve it more than I do.

I can be me, a girl with a big appetite and that’s okay.