For years, food and I have had an interesting relationship. I've purged it, and I've binged on it. I've turned to it when I was happy, and I've turned to it when I was depressed. Food was my best friend. I started noticeably gaining weight at the age of 10. My parents were recently divorced, and the only thing I had other than my 2-year-old twin brothers were the snacks in the kitchen. The snacks provided me a comfort neither my mother or father could give at the time. I began to hate going to the doctor because of the scale, and as my weight progressed, so did my mother's frustration. In her eyes, my weight gain made it seem to the outside world that she was a bad mother who had no control over what her daughter was doing. And so began the name-calling, the shoving of apple cider vinegar down my throat, and the 10-day diet she put me on at 13. I had tried probably 50 different diets over my teenage years, yet my relationship with food only worsened.