When is eating too little too little?

As others have told you, there is one foolproof way to determine whether you're eating enough: Are you maintaining your weight? If you are losing weight, then you're not eating enough. It's that simple. Unless you're fat, you do not want to lose weight.

Of course you have to own a scale in order to acquire this information. If you don't have one, go out and buy one right now. They're not expensive. Every household should have one, it's as important as a vacuum cleaner.

Now if you are living with your parents, that could be because you are not yet an adult. Younger people are still growing, so maintaining their weight isn't good enough. They're supposed to be gaining weight. If you're in school there should be a nurse or a P.E. teacher who has the charts to tell you how much weight a person of your age and stature should gain every year. Otherwise just use the internet. This is popular, important information so it will not be difficult to find.

You must live a sheltered life if you're not familiar with the common wisdom that everyone eats three meals a day. Even people on diets eat three meals, or even more often, because that helps them feel full so they don't run out and eat something naughty.

If you can adjust your habits so you eat breakfast, lunch and supper (either lunch or supper can be "dinner" if you make it your biggest meal--today most Americans eat their big meal at night but 100 years ago when they all did physical labor it was in mid-day), like virtually all other human beings in the Western world, you'll probably feel better and you'll probably no longer have to worry about your weight.

If it's hard for you to become interested in food then you need to figure out why and fix it. That is not normal and it is not healthy. Everything in your whole life depends on getting adequate nutrition. If you're undereating and your weight is far below normal, you will find yourself getting sick too often, you'll be depressed, you won't have any muscle strength, even your intelligence and attention span will suffer.

Just start eating three meals like everybody else. That will probably come pretty close to solving your problem.

This is not just a minor problem that you can ignore until you feel like working on it. This can ruin your life. I have a friend who is 5'5" tall and weighs only 90 lb. (1.65m, 41kg) She looks like a refugee from Auschwitz. No subcutaneous fat, her features are all sharp and bony, her arms and legs are so thin you're afraid if she falls down they'll all snap in half. Some days she doesn't eat at all. She insists that she gets enough vitamins and minerals because she takes supplements, but she doesn't understand that her body can't metabolize those things without some food. In particular, there are several fat-soluble vitamins that just pass right through her system like sawdust. Her health is terrible. She's always sick, she's always weak, she's always depressed, and she's always canceling things with her friends because she just can't muster up enough energy and enthusiasm to get out of the house.

She started out weighing about 110 lb (50kg), which is okay for her size--she's definitely not a big gal. But she just kept not eating enough for several years, and now, at age 52, it's a big problem. I'm 67 but I know it will be I who bury her, not vice versa.

Please don't let this happen to you. If all else fails, go see a doctor!