I made this piece during my first year at University, back in 1994. I realise now that my eating had been disordered for just over a year at that point, off and on, and would continue that way for another year or so after. I was making artwork at the time that featured my body, in prints, photographs, and reflections, that explored the relationship between my body and the world it found itself in. I found the quote somewhere and it connected with me, so I scratched the quote into the surface of one of the images. At that point I’d never heard eating disorders such as Anorexia or Bulimia talked about as something that boys and men could have too. More recently I’ve seen and read about other young gay men who regulated what they ate to change how they looked, and whose eating became disordered, and I recognise myself in them.

I also see now that the quote is a bit simplistic. I don’t believe that these things have one cause or source, but it was important to me at the time that it was a man talking/writing, and that he was exploring the origins of his own disordered eating by looking into his past. My own parents had split up when I was young and I knew that had some kind of an effect on me, but that it wasn’t the full picture.

Looking back now I can understand that I was trying to work out who I was, in terms of my sexuality and gender identity, and didn’t see myself reflected anywhere in a positive way. My artwork gave me a way to explore who I was without having to name or label myself as something that popular media, governments and my parents saw as unnatural, dirty or wrong.

At the time I didn’t see myself as having an eating disorder, the way they were described didn’t fit what I was doing and nor did the image of the teenage girl or young woman that I associated with them. I didn’t like how I looked, and didn’t know who I was, so I either limited what I ate, or made myself sick, or both and I felt that it gave me some kind of agency. No-one found out and I didn’t tell anyone either. I’ve only ever told two people about it as I didn’t think people would understand, as I hardly understand why I did it myself.

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