Confessions of an 18-year-old health freak
I believe there is such a thing as moving over-consciously in the pursuit of health. I say this because I think at the ripe age of 18, I’ve been an example of it.
My dad’s a diabetic who diligently monitors his sugar, and I have an autoimmune disease called psoriasis. Our household has a way of moving around these things, adapting. We adapt the most through food. This means conversations over dinner include discussions on healthy carbs, comparing claims made by traditional doctors with that of holistic ones, and often pulling up a photo of a meal we saw online and saying, “Do you think we can make this, but keto?”
I know it sounds boring. I actually think it’s the opposite! It’s brought my family together in ways I can’t bring justice to with words. We have spent hours laughing together from the kitchen to the dining room because of it. We even set up a café that we run as a family. I’ve learned that food alternatives exist and are sometimes even better-tasting than what is more commonly served.
Stepping back
I really started focusing on my health when we left our hometown. I grew up in the middle of everything, where anything you craved was delivered to your doorstep with the click of a button. Where I live now, fast-food deliveries to your door alone are nonexistent. This, along with my dad’s diabetes, and learning that food affects my autoimmune disease, gave me an easier time thinking about what I was putting in my body.
By 16, I learned healthy eating didn’t mean “sad” eating. By 17, I cut out white rice completely. By 18, I found myself hyperaware of every shot I downed while my friends danced around me. It never mattered how drunk I was—I was never too delirious not to count, and the shots never exceeded five. I was essentially tallying up the damage before my body could. Then in the morning, I thought about how my youthful decisions may have caused my psoriasis to flare-up.
Unlike what you might expect, feeling “left out” was never a problem for me. I never felt left out. The problem was that I felt above it all.
I just started watching, judging everyone else, judging their choices. The way they ate, how many hours they slept, the choices they made because they weren’t afraid of what that meant for them later down the line. How can you do that to yourself? I wanted to ask. Don’t you know what this will do to you when you’re older? It felt like I was carrying true wisdom.
Breaking point
It wasn’t wisdom, not really. I don’t think wisdom is supposed to have you going over the “after effects” of one meal while your friends are living in the moment around you. It’s not supposed to convince you that everything will come undone as you’re reaching for a plate of fries.
I hit a breaking point last January when I found a swollen lymph node behind my ear. It was the most I had ever been “watching my health.” It felt as though 80 percent of the conversations I was having with people was about health, and what we’ve been doing to stay healthy. But my psoriasis was at its worst. I was red and dry, taking antibiotics, dealing with hair loss, and when one thing was over and healed, this came up and put me back on antibiotics.
I sat in my usual seat at family movie night, put the TV on pause, and cried. “I am so tired,” was all I could say to my parents.
It was then that I realized that no matter how obsessively healthy I get, there are simply things I can’t control. These things happen. It is good to watch over my health, but the mental stress I was putting myself in pursuit of health in turn caused more damage.
Since then, I’ve learned to let go—at least a little. I still eat healthy, but I don’t waste time lecturing myself over a bowl of pasta. I still think about my body, but I don’t let the fear of one meal ruin a good night. And funny enough, my psoriasis has been better since I stopped trying so hard to control it (though my doctor deserves credit for that, too).
There’s a fine line between being mindful and being consumed. I spent time believing that discipline meant shutting out anything that didn’t fit into my idea of “health,” but I see now that real health isn’t just about what you eat or how much you move—it’s about balance, about joy, about knowing when to care and when to let yourself live.
Eat the fries, have the drink. Let yourself exist without the weight of every decision hanging over your head. You don’t have to prove you’re doing things “right” all the time. Sometimes, being here, being present, is enough.
