Food and Fat at Work: 83 Moments from a Binge Eater's Professional Life

Abstract

This paper explores binge-eating disorder at work. Through autoethnography, experiences and documentation from the first decade of the author's career (2014-2023) are culled in an effort to examine and convey how food and body challenges related to binge-eating disorder may interact with various aspects of working life, such as socializing, collaborating, mentoring, dressing, eating, traveling, attending meetings and conferences, and carrying out basic professional responsibilities. The story has marks of privilege: The job is white collar and cushy, the demographics and socioeconomics are largely advantaged. The hope is that such a perspective may nonetheless advance our understanding, representation, and discussion of food and body struggles at work. Examining how binge-eating disorder may be battled, endured, succumbed to, managed, feared, hidden, shared, ignored, coped with, detested, obsessed over, and despaired of brings forth how individuals may live and work with multiple bodies at once – where each body has its own profile of behaviors and experiences, each body's comings and goings are not wholly predictable, and most bodies are unwanted yet resistant to efforts to discard them. The paper concludes by considering implications of this body multiplicity for our understanding of identity, purposive action, motivation, masculinity, and empathy.