A recovering anorexia teacher was left crying in a restaurant bathroom after opening a menu to find that each dish had a description of its calories.
Primary school teacher, Kelly Louise Appleton, admits she is now too frightened to eat out - after the Government forced restaurants to label all meals with individual calorie counts.
During lockdown, she faced a frightening battle with the eating disorder when Kelly forced herself to walk 12,000 steps a day whilst eating "almost nothing", LancsLive reported.
The 23-year old once weighed a terrifying five stone and seven pounds, after lockdown isolation left her with a terrifying battle with the eating disorder.
However, it was only until psychiatrists warned that her organs would fail that Kelly admitted she had a problem, telling her worried mum: “I’m going to die before you."
She now believes the calorie menu rules are a “danger to my recovery” and she has since started a petition to change the law, which has so far gained over 7,000 signatures.
Kelly admits she feels "much better" when she looks at herself in the mirror after seeking the help of anorexia charity Beat.
Kelly admitted: “When I saw the calories on the menu, I went into the toilet, and I ended up crying. I had gone out for a meal with my boyfriend, and it just kind of brought back those negative thoughts, and I felt myself almost going backwards.
She said: “I think everybody in recovery struggles to go out as it is, and I think they push themselves to go out and gain that love of food back.
"But if the topic of conversation is now going to be calories and comparing what people are eating, it’s just going to set so many back Now I’m scared to go out for meals.”
Although the calorie labelling was introduced in England on Wednesday (April 6), Kelly is not demanding an outright ban on calorie labelling.
She wants to see restaurants use more tactile ways to display them, which wouldn't wouldn’t alienate anorexia sufferers.
Kelly explained: “It’s about allowing that choice. There could be a QR code at the bottom that you could scan, and the calories could be there for people who want to see them, so it’s not forced upon you.
“Then people who are classed as obese or who are calorie counting have that option to scan that, but then it’s not put in front of everybody else.
"Restaurants have said about having two menus, but I worry that anorexia sufferers and people who struggle with the calories are going to feel almost ashamed of asking for that other menu.”
