Nicole Baumann is a sophomore and the Chief of Staff of Student Government at the University of Notre Dame. This past February, Nicole shared an original poem she wrote on social media, entitled “May Our Daughters Break the Curse.” In powerful words and images, Nicole addresses the prevalence and dangers of the normalization of disordered eating.

In her poem and in our conversation, she discusses how disordered eating thrives on the widespread acceptance of the notion that a woman’s worth is intrinsically tied up in her size. She also discusses the surprising response to her poem, shares about her own experience of disordered eating, and identifies some of the major influences she sees impacting Gen Z, when it comes to struggles with food and body image. This is such an important conversation, naming the dangers of normalizing disordered eating. My hope is that conversations like this one might wake us all up to this cultural trend, so we can “break the curse,” as Nicole puts it, for the next generation.