ELAINE SANTORE: Weighing our eating choices

I am about to boldly go where no woman has gone before: I am going to reveal my weight. On most days, I weigh 115 pounds. On a bad day, I weigh 117.5 pounds. The jeans I have on right now are a size two, but I usually wear a four.

Ideally, 110 pounds and a size zero would be nice.

Weight has become an integral part of how we identify ourselves as American women. We define ourselves by our weight and dress size, and we compete with other women. What we eat, how much we eat, and how we feel about it unites us.

Whenever I'm in the locker room of the Campus Recreation Center, I see the same thing happen over and over again: Women stand in front of the mirror, lift up their shirts, and look at their stomachs.

We all do this for the same reason: to see how we've progressed. We know we won't go down ten pounds in the span of an hour, but we do it anyway.

I do not have an eating disorder. I eat about four meals a day, sometimes six. I have a high metabolism. I eat (for the most part) healthy food, exercise several days a week and have the energy of a 4-year-old on speed.

Everybody has at least one friend who either suffers from an eating disorder or used to have an eating disorder. According to the Eating Disorders Coalition, or EDC, 0.5-3.7 percent of women are anorexic, 1.1-4.2 percent of women are bulimic and 2-5 percent of men and women have binge eating disorder.

The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, or ANAD, reports that eating disorders affect all populations in America, not just upper class white women anymore.

From a young age, we are encouraged to eat and face punishment if we do not eat. As a child, my grandmother told me, "Finish your food. Magalit si God! (God will get angry!)" I associated food with guilt.

My guilt escalated when I began studying ballet when I was 8 years old. I was one of the chubbiest girls in my class. After I hit puberty, I began losing weight, to the delight of my ballet teacher.

However, after quitting dance four years later, I put on weight. By my freshman year of high school, I felt invisible to everyone, especially boys.

As a dancer, I saw my body as art, capable of expression through movement. As a high school student, I saw my body as an object.

Every year, millions of young women develop eating disorders because of high school pressure.

One result is a subculture of “anas” (anorexics) and “mias” (bulimics) swapping tricks, tips and “thinspiration” on “pro-ana,” or pro anorexia, sites, message boards and chat rooms. Women and girls use the sites to discuss tips and tricks with each other.

The sites provide “support” for those suffering from an inherently isolating disorder.

According to the Eating Disorders Association of America, there were about 400 pro-ana sites in 2004. The sites began popping up in 1998. In 2001, a petition drive began to shut the sites down. Yahoo shut down its groups in July 2001, but sites remain.

The content of these sites shocked and saddened me. At a Web site titled Plagueangel, the author described pro-ana as, “proactive, volitional anorexia.” Anorexia is not a disorder but a “lifestyle choice.” All anorexics have different “triggers,” or whatever spurs the eating disorder.

One message board had a post titled “What is everyone eating for breakfast?” The members each revealed their meal and explanation for their choice. Many of the members signed their posts with their height, highest weight, lowest weight, current weight and goal weight.

A popular source of “thinspiration” is actress, mogul and teenage billionaire Mary-Kate Olsen. How could a woman with all the money in the world be starving herself?

This also made we wonder: How does our weight-obsessed culture look to those who live in poverty?

I did not realize how ingrained the image of thinness had become until I watched a documentary on the Holocaust in one of my Political Science courses. Watching dead, naked Jews being buried into mass graves, I caught myself thinking, “Wow, they're all so thin.”

I do not have a solution to the growing epidemic of eating disorders. I know I have to stop defining myself by my weight.

I need to stop surrounding myself with triggers that make me hate my body. Some of these triggers are fashion magazines and the current bombardment of weight loss reality shows. Others are women who hate their bodies and talk about dieting on a daily basis.

March is National Women's Month. Maybe we ladies should go where we’ve never been before and treat our bodies and minds better – in celebration.