'When Skinny Tastes Good' by Emma Lee
When Skinny Tastes Good
I called him in for a fictional meeting.
Creatives didn’t have to wear a suit and tie
but I’d noticed his layers were getting thicker.
I asked if he wanted to tell me why
he told everyone he was training all the time
because I knew he was telling a lie.
Dad fed him junk food, raged if he dared leave a chip.
His mum told him he was chubby and would end up alone.
He told her he’d eaten breakfast before
she got up, eaten at a friend’s before coming home,
kept lunch money in a box beneath his bed.
He felt strong. Confident when he could see his bones.
He watched the numbers on the scales reduce
but kept going. Got used to feeling dizzy
on standing. But the one thing I’ll always remember
is when he said he thought he was the only
man who felt that way and it was a girl who said
nothing tastes as good as feeling skinny.
But the best thing I did was listen
and give him space to talk. He promised
to get help. I promised support. I needed his focus
on sales. His value should be measured
in achieving targets. I needed colleagues
who were fit and strong, not exhausted.
Comments
Author: This poem is in the voice of an employee who notices a colleague is becoming underweight and invites him to a meeting to offer him chance to open up about what he's going through. He traces his disordered eating back to his childhood and his divorced parents' contrasting attitudes to food. His father serves up junk and overreacts if his son leaves any food. He learns to eat everything on his plate and override his body's natural warning when he's full to stop his father’s overreaction. His mother tells him he's overweight so he skips meals and lies to her because the only way he can counter his father's overfeeding is by not eating when he's with his mother. The sense of control he gets from skipping meals and saving his school lunch money, keeps him trapped in the pattern of disordered eating, carrying into adulthood. But when he has to explain his disordered eating to a colleague, he begins to realise the damage it's causing. Once he acknowledges that, his colleague offers support. Often bystanders such as friends and colleagues know or suspect the person they care about has an eating disorder, but don't know how to start that conversation or don't know how to help. Frequently, the most valuable thing such a bystander can do is to listen without judgment and without interrupting, so creating a supportive space.
Our readers who ranked the poems:
- good to see support offered through this poem and a wider appreciation & noticing of challenging – a theme that emerges often
- emphasizes the importance of people recognising the danger of the disorder
- this poem brings accurately out the struggles the author faces in relationships with his own family. The emphasis on the perils of controlling relationships and the consequences he faces is evident throughout the poem. In the last few lines, the author uses the words, “for us”, to not only share his pain but also recognizes that there are other males going through a similar struggle with living up to societal expectations.
- conveys well when someone tries to reach out
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