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Emma White

For more than two decades of Janet Leung’s life, hunger replaced her joy.
After losing her father, endless food maths filled her head, drowning out other thoughts. Her anxiety around eating kept others at a distance.
Miserable as she was, Leung could not give up this distraction; it offered an escape from the sideways glances and judgment that she endured in her youth. Hidden inside the grown-up was a 16-year-old girl, stuck in an environment that demanded perfection.
Patching a ‘broken window’
One Hong Kong night, when she was 14, Leung woke to a world without her father.
Her mother had roused her after an urgent call from the hospital. Leung did not want to get up – she had become accustomed to late-night trips to her father’s bedside in case it was time to say goodbye – but this time, she arrived to news that he had already gone.
A blank feeling overcame Leung, and she wondered why her family friends were crying more than she was.
Before he died, her father had told the family to live their lives as they normally would. Leung and her sisters departed for a Canadian boarding school in the months following.
His death was like a “broken window in her home”. She had lost her father, her protector and her connection to food in a single blow, and would carry her grief deep inside as she grew into adulthood.

Food as a love language
Long before Leung’s father was diagnosed with diabetes and pancreatic cancer, she had sensed that he needed her support. A weariness clung to him, as ever-present as the factory smell in his hair. He cherished family meals and made batches of barbecue pork buns to share. Food became a love language between father and daughter – by eating what he served, Leung could show him how much she cared.
During her childhood, her eating habits were not a priority. She saw beauty in her figure, and had little time for anything but her studies. Her school in Hong Kong was “the kind of school that either you are in the top 10, or you’re invisible”, Leung says. “For me, being invisible is a form of death.”
She was told she was overweight and taken to the doctor for weight loss. Her food intake and body size were constantly critiqued.
Leung had little motivation to change. Her father had not been a lean man, and she saw him as her protector from the rest of the world’s judgment. His passing stripped Leung of that security.
At boarding school, diet culture was inescapable as students struggled under the pressure of being watched. Slowly, Leung developed restrictive eating rules, her thoughts straying towards food more as she ate less. Her weight started to drop in the summer after her first year at school.
She fell under a dangerous illusion: by focusing on her body, she could chase perfection while attempting to regain the safety her father once provided. The more she thought about food, the less she thought about him.
Focus on body image starts early
In Hong Kong, body image concerns can start as early as six years old in children of Chinese descent, according to a 2014 study by Cambridge University Press. The study found that only 25 per cent of children between six and 12 were satisfied with their body size, with about half of the students reporting they wanted to be thinner.
As in Leung’s case, multiple factors usually combine to cause an eating disorder, according to Vanessa Yim See-heng, a psychology professor at the University of Hong Kong. They can stem from external factors such as family environment and life stressors, as well as core personality traits like perfectionism.
Globally, eating disorders account for an estimated 3.4 million lost years of healthy life each year, according to the Global Burden of Disease study. Leung would go on to lose 20.

The physical toll
About six months into her restrictive eating, Leung knew something was off.
Anxious thoughts, constant mathematics and food analysis consumed her. Panic made her pull out her eyebrows and eyelashes. She could never get warm, her energy plummeted and her mind spun with irrational thoughts about food.
Her mother tried to reason with her, which Leung put down to jealousy. The boarding school nurse made her eat meals in front of her, but Leung, unwilling to give up control, felt only irritation.
This continued even as she studied at university in Canada, spent time in Hong Kong and took graduate classes in New York. Wherever she was, the days ticked by monotonously, elongated by constant hunger. She spent most evenings alone.
In her 20s, Leung developed irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and anaemia. Dull abdominal pain replaced her hunger, and she lost the ability to sleep as aches kept her up all night.
At 26, her mother convinced her to move back to Hong Kong to focus on her health. Leung, who still did not connect her ailments to restrictive eating, worked in journalism, finance and investor relations.
At 36 and miserable at her investor relations job, she went online and chose a therapist at random. It was a perfect match – Leung found herself experiencing simple moments of joy just a few therapy sessions in.
A close bond like the one Leung and her therapist developed is critical for effective treatment, especially for individuals navigating long-term restrictive eating disorders like Leung’s, says Daisy Wu, the centre-in-charge at the Hong Kong Eating Disorders Association.
“You need to step into their shoes and show … empathy, to not just push them to gain weight,” Wu says.
Even so, disordered eating still ruled her life. Soon after she started therapy, she suffered a bad break-up and was physically ill. One day, as she ran on the treadmill, a voice in her head asked her: “How long will you let people treat you like this?”
She realised she was not thinking about her ex-boyfriend, but herself.

Unpacking the grief
Leung went back to therapy with fresh determination. For three hours a week, she and her therapist examined each belief that Leung held.
They unearthed a fountain of guilt. Leung realised she had always regretted not visiting her dad more often in the months before his death. She was haunted by the image of him alone, sick and afraid in a hospital bed.
More realisations came, but she started to see herself as she was back then – a child coping in the best way she knew how.
Slowly, she started eating more. The fear of gaining weight still tormented her, but her mood began to lift, and aches she had always assumed were unrelated to her eating habits started to subside.
In her mid-thirties, Leung completed a master’s degree in creative writing and poured her story onto the page. She spent three straight days writing about her dad to memorialise him, barely sleeping and stopping only to go to work.
Talk therapy helped her unpack her suppressed grief, but two years ago, at 44, she realised she was still struggling with behavioural compulsions, like over-exercising. She called the Hong Kong Eating Disorders Association helpline to dive deeper into recovery.

A team including a psychologist and a psychiatrist helped her confront her eating disorder head-on, easing her anxiety and expanding her life.
The recovery process continues. Now 46, Leung chooses not to act on her panicked thoughts, instead going to sleep and re-evaluating in the morning. She eats at restaurants with friends and has regular meals.
In the past, Leung says her mind felt dominated by a relentless thrum like electronic dance music. Now that there is space to breathe, she fills it with simple pleasures – going out with friends, painting her nails, diving into her passion for true crime stories.
Each one feels like heaven.
“It’s like, people who experience war would find a biscuit very delicious because they don’t have food,” Leung says. “I can appreciate the little things, the little peace that I have now, because it was absolute hell before.”
The moments of thrum still come and go, but the bassline soon fades, leaving behind a lilting acoustic melody.
If you need eating disorder support for yourself or someone you care about, help is available. In Hong Kong, contact the Hong Kong Eating Disorders Association (HEDA) hotline at 2850 4448 or email heda@heda-hk.org. You can also dial 18111 for the government-run Mental Health Support Hotline.
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Lifestyle

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Janet Leung lost more than two decades to severe food restriction. Now, at 46, she reflects on finding peace, therapy and the joys in recovery


Janet Leung lost more than two decades to severe food restriction. Now, at 46, she reflects on finding peace, therapy and the joys in recovery.


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Disease

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Hong Kong woman’s 20-year eating disorder after dad’s death and how she recovered

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Janet Leung lost more than two decades to severe food restriction. Now, at 46, she reflects on finding peace, therapy and the joys in recovery

Patching a ‘broken window’

Janet Leung lost more than two decades to severe food restriction. Now, at 46, she reflects on finding peace, therapy and the joys in recovery