1/3/2023 0 Comments Tesco calories counterIt’s a symbol, the inner A-Level English student I’ve never quite killed says, sagely. I keep thinking about that scene in Normal People - Marianne, alone and abroad, sitting in a cafe with her coffee and her pastry, picking it apart, morsel by morsel. Later, your mum talks you into ordering takeaway, and you wait for it in bed, shaking, feverish with hunger but unable to let yourself eat until it comes, like a reward, for how sick you’ve made yourself. You phone your boyfriend three times, and end up leaving with some tofu, some strawberries, and two pints of almond milk. You charge the crisps aisle head on, before swerving to a packet of puffed quinoa, and try to remember last time you ate a Sensation. You think about how the pasta will feel as it dissolves in your mouth, mushy. You gingerly leaf through energy bars, consider how processed each and every veggie sausage may be. You stand before the vegetarian ready meals for twenty minutes, assessing the minutiae of each label. Tesco is an embarrassing battleground, when no one knows you’re fighting. #Tesco calories counter freeAfter the new government policy, I wasn’t just panicking in Franco Manca or Byron, I was panicking in Tesco, and in small artisan cafes where everything is vegan and gluten free anyway, and at home. They’re like ear-worms, crawling into your brain and ringing over and over again in your ears, even when you’re not directly exposed to triggers like calories on menus. First of all, why should those who are struggling and vulnerable be forced to isolate further, to avoid all things good in life, and to engage in avoidant behaviours which can exacerbate illness? Besides, eating disorders don’t work like that. But I also saw people defending it, and arguing that, if they were so concerned, people with eating disorders or disordered eating problems should simply stay at home, and avoid eating out at chains. #Tesco calories counter how toIn the weeks surrounding the new policy, I saw a lot of arguments against it, and a lot of advice on how to cope - BEAT’s own guide is particularly useful. But since the government’s new policy of calorie-counting, I’d been slipping backwards, finding myself stymied with fear in restaurants, panicking at red and orange labels in supermarkets, and assessing every detail of what I was eating once again.Īgainst the new calorie-counting policy, eating disorder charity BEAT UK put out a statement of concern, stating that ‘Requiring calorie counts on menus risks causing great distress for people suffering from or vulnerable to eating disorders, since evidence shows that calorie labelling exacerbates eating disorders of all kinds’. When I walked into the GP surgery and asked for a referral, I’d been doing well, on a two year recovery streak since the first lockdown forced me to be still, eat well, and recharge, even gaining my menstruation back after years of amenorrhea. And like any other mental illness, recovery is not a one way street. Will I ever eat my favourite half-baked cookie dough again, now I know what’s in it.Įating disorders, perhaps more than any other mental illness, are both mental and physical. Why does this pub have calories on drinks. Can I get a snack with my coffee if I’m having dessert later. What are the sat fats in this ready meal. How am I going to manage this meal out, given the government’s new policy, where large businesses are required to display calorie information on menus and food labels. In my case, unlike when I was a teenager, my weight wasn’t dangerously low. Just as an eating disorder forces you to value yourself solely by your body, rather than by your personhood, brain, soul, heart, whatever, your ability to access care is often based on your physical condition. So I went home without the referral and that was that. I hadn’t stopped eating, so I wasn’t about to keel over and end up in a hospital bed, but there were people who were, and the waiting list was so long that there was no point even adding me to it. I don’t remember the words the doctor used, but the message was clear - I wasn’t sick enough. My GP told me she’d make a referral, and then nothing happened, and then I followed up months later, and they weighed me, and took me for an ECG, and I tried again. It wasn’t that simple, of course, because it’s never that simple with NHS Mental Health services. The last time I tried to access eating disorder support services, they told me I wasn’t sick enough.
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