I am having some trouble with myself. I don't know if I have an eating disorder or what. I will eat sometimes (not large amounts, but not small amounts), but I feel fat. Then there are other times that I will not eat for a day or two and a few days after that I will skip meals. I tend to skip alot of meals, like at school when I am around people or peers. What's up?

Please help me.

I actually don't know anyone who doesn't have a food neurosis -- either starving, making ourselves throw up, constantly measuring ourselves against others and not feeling like we don't measure up. It seems to be an unescapable cycle -- at least one that we get stuck in for a few years of our lives.

In my experience and that of most of my peers, I actually noticed that it seemed to dissipate by our mid-to-late 20's -- mostly because you start to value what makes you and your body unique and you realize that while you might be jealous of someone's legs, they are jealous of your arms -- there is no perfect body, so we all begin to realize what we are happy with and what we want to change.

However, this ease doesn't come to everyone -- some people struggle their entire lives and still never feel good and others go beyond this more mild stage and actually do damage to their bodies. The fact that you are identifying it means that you are committed to working toward it. What I found is that whether or starved or ate, I still wasn't happy with my body, so I should at least be healthy and eat and before long, I realized that I was happy with my body.

Hopefully you can find a way to measure yourself against you and not against others, since that is really the only accurate way to measure it. I hope that you can continue to talk about this and soon stop, monitor yourself and think about what's good for you.

Take care and good luck,

— Amy