#no one believes someone obese can have a restrictive eating disorder

[terryfuckingturniptruck]

Men stop commenting on my food challenge.

[brostateexam]

This is going to be a post about diets and weight loss

On the one hand, I am really glad to see people starting to recognize that dieting is just... not effective. Because it isn't, sorry. You can lose an arbitrary percentage of your highest body weight via diet and exercise, and the more you lose:

the harder it gets to lose more weight

the easier it gets to gain back weight

These two things, in combination, mean that unless you are looking to lose a relatively paltry amount of weight, dieting is probably not the answer. It can work if you've gone up one size and would like to go back down. It does not work if you want to drop six sizes. The odds against someone doing that via diet and exercise alone and keeping it off are overwhelming.

I've done it, actually! Pre-surgery, I lost over 50 lbs (22kg) four times in my life: once when I was in highschool, once in college, once as a young adult, and once in my early 30s. It got harder to do each time, and required more extreme interventions each time. The first time was with good ol' Weight Watchers and a restrictive eating disorder, the last time was with a limited calorie diet that made me feel like I was going to pass out all the time.

People who can lose weight in this way and keep it off long term (the longest I kept it off was about 1.5 years) are outliers, or people who are willing to devote their entire life to diet and exercise, which is impractical unless you're an athlete or a personal trainer.

So it's encouraging to hear people in the weight loss industrial complex say "diets don't work." Because they don't. They just don't.

On the other hand, we are once again prescribing weight loss drugs that are touted as safe and effective to handle the "disease" of obesity. I have nothing against Ozempic and Wagovy in particular. I don't know enough about them to have positive or negative feelings. I do think it's safe to say:

The history of weight loss drugs is pretty rotten. Fen-phen, redux, (or the ol' speedball special of both fen-phen and redux), as well as amphetamines were all touted as wonder drugs that would help fat people become skinny. Largely, they just gave fat people health problems or killed them.

Weight loss drugs also don't actually drop that much weight from people. Again, maybe Ozempic and Wagovy are different! But the combination of fen-phen and redux was found to help people lose 15 lbs on average for as long as they stayed on the drugs. Then they gained it back. Not exactly a miracle.

To me, weight loss drugs, and dieting, and the weight loss industry in general falls into the category of "things we don't need proof to believe." We as a society want to believe that fat people are lazy, ignorant slobs because that excuses the daily cruelty and discrimination society heaps upon them. If weight loss isn't actually as easy as just dieting, well, there has to be something else that totally works that fat people are just not doing, or else we are being callous and shitty to a large percentage of the population for no actual reason. Therefore, diets don't work, but ozempic and wagovy totally do, and anyone who is fat is just choosing to be that way. Just like before, but now it's with medicine instead of a dietary regimen.

[yourhealthandfitness-world]

I Designed Programs To Help People Lose Weight. Everything I Thought I Knew Was Wrong.

Presenting my dissertation 10 years ago. If you look closely, the screen shows the title of my talk, which was all about obesity and daily weighing.

Presenting my dissertation 10 years ago. If you look closely, the screen shows the title of my talk, which was all about obesity and daily weighing. (Photo: Photo Courtesy of Dori Steinberg)

Content note: I use the term “obesity” in the title and throughout the piece only for the purpose of describing my career focus before I realized my research was causing harm. This term may seem like neutral medical terminology, but for many, it is stigmatizing.

I was an “obesity” researcher for nearly two decades, and in that time, I helped design and test numerous weight-loss programs. Like other travelers along my career path, I had good intentions from the start. I genuinely believed I was helping people by supporting them to lose weight. But I was wrong.

I struggled with my own weight and body image ever since I was a young child. Growing up just outside New York City in the ’80s and ’90s, a time when diet culture was alive and thriving, I developed core beliefs that something was wrong with my body and that being fat was something to avoid — at all costs.

In my early teens, I attended weight-loss camps with the hope that if I could just shrink my body, things would be better. I lost weight, but it quickly returned. I blamed myself, thinking that if I really wanted to lose weight, I would have to do better. By the time I was 15, I decided to become a dietitian.

I thought more knowledge about nutrition was the key to controlling my own weight and that I could help others along the way. This choice ultimately morphed into a career in research, where I focused on investigating how to “solve” chronic disease with weight loss. But even in my tightly controlled studies, with ample resources and daily support, most of the participants achieved minimal weight loss and gained the weight back once the study ended.

After many attempts to design an effective weight-loss program, I realized that the data from the studies I worked on never succeeded in showing that weight could be modified long-term. And it wasn’t just in my own research — the broader scientific literature showed similar results. In one prominent national study, only 10-20% of study participants maintained weight loss after 1 year, with even lower rates years later.

Story continues

I also realized that identifying weight as the primary indicator of health was problematic. It is impossible to tell someone’s health just by looking at their body size, and being thinner does not necessarily equate to being healthier. The reality is that much of our weight and shape is determined by genetics — just like height. The misguided belief that we can all be in small bodies is not only wrong, it’s harmful and discriminatory.

After much internal reflection, I realized I had an eating disorder, stemming all the way back to my childhood. I also realized that my eating disorder was what drove many of my career decisions and beliefs about weight and health.

After receiving treatment in my late 30s, I saw my career studying “obesity” in a new light: My work was perpetuating harmful practices and stereotypes, and I couldn’t be a part of that anymore. I switched my focus to researching eating disorders, how they present themselves and impact diverse people, and what we can do to treat them more effectively.

Along this journey, I learned a few key things I think are important for organizations, physicians, researchers and the general population to understand.

There are no “good foods” or “bad foods.”

The myth that some foods (e.g., cookies) are “bad” and are to be avoided in favor of “good” foods (e.g., fruits and vegetables) is one of the harmful beliefs that led to my eating disorder in the first place. Dieting or restricting any foods is often a gateway to disordered eating. People need all kinds of foods to live and thrive – even the sugars and fats we’ve been falsely taught to always turn down.

Moreover, this black-and-white thinking ignores the fact that not all people can access the so-called “good” foods. Social determinants such as poverty and food insecurity make it challenging for many to access or afford fresh fruit and vegetables, find time to prepare “balanced” meals three times a day, or even know when their next meal will be. Food insecurity is highly correlated with eating disorders, and the message that some foods are to be avoided to better your health only perpetuates that risk.

Weight is not intrinsically tied to health.

The health care industry has put too large an emphasis on the relationship between weight and health. Rather than investigating other factors for conditions like chronic pain or diabetes, many clinicians will almost instinctively turn first to weight and suggest that weight loss is the answer. This type of weight bias has increased over the past several decades.

Weight bias disproportionately harms people in large bodies, who often avoid seeking health care because of the stigma they experience. Clinicians must prioritize eliminating other, more serious, root causes of symptoms first, instead of centering weight as the primary factor — no matter who they’re treating. They also need to listen to their patients and trust that they know their bodies best instead of refusing to investigate an illness or pain based on the patient’s body size.

It’s never too late to unlearn harmful ideas.

I held my beliefs about weight, food and health for decades — both personally and professionally. It’s easy to think that once you hold a core idea for so long, and even build a career out of it, it can be impossible to change your perspective.

What helped me unlearn these beliefs was the recognition that I was encouraging harmful behaviors that often show up in people with eating disorders. The only difference is that we think these behaviors are helpful for those in large bodies and harmful for those in thin bodies. The truth is, these behaviors are harmful for everyone.

My journey hasn’t been an easy one, but I have gained so much as a result. I gained weight, as my body needed more nourishment. I gained freedom from the oppressive beliefs that my worth is tied to my weight. I gained a new passion for researching eating disorders and using what I learn to help others.

I also gained better mental health, greater connection with my family and friends, and a firm belief that we must dismantle our culture’s harmful ideas about weight and health so our next generation of children can grow up believing their bodies don’t need to be changed in order for them to have value.

[fencesandfrogs]

hi my name is matthew and i have some thoughts about haes

okay disclaimers: i’m a little jumpy around the subject so while i don’t feel i’m being unnecessarily harsh/unfair, if ur firm on haes w no yielding, and you don’t want to argue about it? either skip this or don’t respond. i don’t really care. but i’m putting the body under a read more.

[3k words, 10 minute read. sections headers, some text italicized for emphasis/some readibility. no images/videos, a few links.]

second disclaimer: i’m not planning on going heavy on sources. i will happily provide sources to people who want them, and i haven’t written the actual post yet but it’s unlike me not to cite anything, but doing an in depth well researched and sourced post on this type of subject is not something i’m up for right now.

like i said, i’m jumpy around this subject. and on the off chance someone decides this post is Bad and i must be banished to the Bad Blogs Bin, i’d rather not put a lot of work into it.

third disclaimer: i’m not particularly interested in reading X study that says actually no people who way 700 pounds are healthy and people who weigh less than 200 are going to die early deaths. i know that’s a straw man i needed to a) get it out of the way now and b) i just am tired all the time and don’t have a ton of itme for it. that said, if you do send one to me, i will probably read it at some point, and i may or may not provide my thoughts.

right then. moving on.

with no more waffling, my thesis is as follows: weight stigma is bad, however obesity is killing people and i really would like people to stop pretending it doesn’t.

i. really hate that that’s a controversial opinion. i mean i hold a decent number of somewhat controversial opinions, most of which i keep to myself because i’m a firm believer that what i think about something should not interfere with how other people live their lives. as a noncontroversial example, i think mormons are in a cult. children, being minors, being indoctrinated is a problem, one i myself am not dedicated to solving because i have other issues but as far as adults involved, that’s their business.

(*please note that i’m not expanding on my thoughts because this post is about haes but i do have a more complicated opinion i’m just trying to demonstrate something please don’t at me about cults i know that they’re bad and adults in them also need help getting out that’s not the point of this post & i’m anxious enough so like, please.)

anyway so. obesity. is bad. it is bad for your health. if you are obese, you are not healthy. that said, i am not going to tell you to lose weight. no one should tell you to lose weight except for your doctor and maybe your immediate family, and that should be from a place of “you are not living your best life and i care about you.” i, an internet stranger, along with pretty much everyone you know, does not get to tell you about how terrible your life is and what a horrible person you are for existing, because you are not a bad person for being overweight. you do not deserve discrimination or mistreatment. even if you’re not actively trying to lose weight. it doesn’t matter. you are a human being like any other and i will fight like hell for you.

i’m not planning on going heavy into eating disorders because a) that’s a triggering topic for me and b) it’s going to muddle the point i’m getting, but since it is a large part of the arguments re. haes, it’s certainly going to come up, so i’d like to list the officially recognized eating disorders.

Anorexia Nervosa (AN)

Bulimia Nervosa (BN)

Binge Eating Disorder (BED)

Other Specified Feeding and Eating Disorder (OSFED)

Pica

Rumination Disorder

Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID)

Unspecified Feeding or Eating Disorder (UFED)

Other (aka “we are considering making this its own category but for matthew’s purposes it fits into AFRID or UFED well enough because the details aren’t important”)

so yeah. we’ll circle back to this.

section one: haes

haes initially stood for heatlh at every size. that doesn’t really matter anymore because people say healthy at every size now, however, the distinction is important. because.

okay. when i say being obese makes you inherently unhealthy, i am not saying you are having health problems for being overweight. i am saying you have a chronic illness. i have asthma. that makes me inherently unhealthy. i don’t necessarily have an health problems because i am asthmatic, but i have a chronic illness and it certainly would, say, make me more likely to die from covid. that is a fact. saying healthy at every lung functionality would not change that.

but you know, i can still be active and like smell plants and interact in the world like anyone else. i just try to keep my inhaler near by.

so similarly, if you are overweight/obese (i’ve been saying only obese because its less letters so i’m sticking with that), you can, like, live ur best life and take care of your health. you can feel good about your body and eat good food and move and again, i really don’t want anyone reading this to feel that i think everyone who’s obese needs to lose that weight because adults can do whatever they want.

what i’m angry about is that a good thing (encouraging people to make good choices no matter what so they can feel good in their bodies) got turned into a bad thing (telling people they don’t need to change what they’re doing because they’re perfectly healthy).

section two: but what about...?

see my third disclaimer. but as a fast rundown of things i probably won’t talk about in detail later:

the obesity paradox is a specific thing about a specific type of illness in the elderly. it’s also not about obesity, it’s about being slightly overweight. it’s a complicated thing, but it’s not true most of the time

sumo wrestlers have major health problems as soon as they stop exercising like crazy.

did you know there are countries where girls are force fed to become overweight? diet culture goes both ways

if you want to say healthy at every size, you have to mean that every. that means you are not allowed to say shit about underweight people. i’m sorry, is someone you care about wasting away? are they 5′10 and weigh  90 pounds and their hair is falling out because they aren’t eating? i’m sorry, you said people are healthy at every size. you can’t make fun of skinny people. you have to suck it up because you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

section three: self care

a hypothetical that is blindingly obvious to where i’m going: if a small child wants to play with a knife, are you caring for them by giving into it? what if they want to drink some vodka? what if they want to run away from home to live with a stranger in a white van?

i really really hope all those answers are “no, you’re neglecting that child, and also possibly actively harming it.”

so my point is pretty obvious: giving yourself something because you want it does not mean you are caring for yourself.

you know what i want  to do all the time? sleep and rewatch twilight every day. but that makes me feel worse. so even though it’s terrible and i hate it, i have to take care of myself (because there is only one of me that i ever get) and go outside and talk to people and eat something that isn’t popcorn because you need protein to live.

(sorry i tried to keep nutrition out of that but i have to actively seek out sufficient salt and protein due to my campus doing a lot of low sodium food, which is bad when u actually need to eat a good amount of salt to keep ur body working, and also i’m vegetarian. so i’m constantly making myself seek it out.)

that doesn’t mean self care is always supposed to be work, but i mean. i’ve always not really gotten into it. i think because i’m hella depressed and i’ve been depressed long enough i can recognize it as this separate entity when it comes to a lot of the mental stuff. like, why do i feel like everything is meaningless? that’s just the depression.

but i digress, this isn’t about me. [proceeds to talk about me again]

one phrase i like a lot for myself is “bad food makes me feel bad.” now, i’m not a fan of putting moral judgements to food. but this works for me, personally. sure, eating a bunch of ice cream right now is good, but it’s going to suck when my stomach flips the fuck out because of all the sugar. and so it seems quite obvious to me that eating that ice cream is not, in fact, caring for my body.

and i think we’d collectively be a bit better served if we could learn to distinguish between self-care and self-kindness. ask anyone who does caregiving (childcare, nurses, etc): it is hard, often thankless (at least for children they’re devils who don’t realize that their toys will get wrecked if they don’t pick them up) work. you care for them not by doing what they want, but what is best for them.

section four: diet culture

as i’ve already played my hand up above with underweight vs haes, i think it’s kind of obvious that i have strong feelings about underweight not being healthy also. so i just want to take stock of what is and isn’t diet culture, and what i think about it. this is probably the most subjective part of this essay.

things i think are diet culture

people trying ridiculous diets. obviously diet culture in the purest sense. it’s real dumb. you need all the food groups to live. sometimes it’s okay, like cutting out sugar, but i’d say its a net negative

not trying to do lifestyle changes. that’s the sustainable way to lose weight. so. yeah.

weight cycling. actually still up for debate if this is bad. this paper says no, along with a lot of others, but i’m not sitting down and reading through all of them, and all of the ones that say its bad, to offer my opinion. i’m leaning towards “it’s better than nothing,” but we’ll see

a lot of other stuff i’m doing this off the top of my head and trying to avoid issues w eating disorders so.

things i think aren’t diet culture

women being pressured to look a certain way. that’s been going on for a long time. being skinny used to be bad. it’s a fact of the patriarchy.

most things? idk i have this impression that like, anyone exercising or eating healthy is a part of diet culture, when in reality, people just have different lifestyles. (also, again, if you’re going with haes, as in HealthyAES (hyaes?) you can’t call it unhealthy or you’re not respecting that damn E)

in conclusion: diet culture has issues, but the correct response to them is not “fuck you, i’m eating fourteen pounds of sugar.” eat fourteen pounds of sugar because you want to. (also it should be fat because if you really want to stick it to the man you should be eating fat, big sugar is responsible for a huge amount of todays dietary problems, both on the under/overweight side)

section five: discrimination

yeah no fuck people who discriminate about fat people. that’s all i’m just moving along to a transition since i was drifting away from my point about health.

section six: weight stigma

...is not responsible for your health issues. being obese is. accept the consequences of your lifestyle.

well. okay. that’s a little unfair. accept the consequences of not treating your chronic illness. and i feel i’ve probably lost people for calling obesity an illness but that’s the whole point of my post.

just like carrying externally heavy objects hurts your joints, so does carrying a lot of weight inside. fat does not cushion your organs, it kills them. getting rid of weight stigma will not make these issues go away.

the treatment for obesity is eating the number of calories you need to sustain a healthy weight at your current exercise levels. (*please consult with your doctor this is more complicated when you have to lose a lot of weight.)

section seven: cico. or, why your metabolism is fine

your body does not break the laws of thermodynamics. it cannot magically create more energy out of a given amount of calories.

there are issues with calorie counting, yes. i think it’s usually done in an unsustainable way that isn’t teaching people to make decisions, just to do math. it can be hard to get an accurate count.

but you are not a miracle of science. you have not discovered how to create and destroy energy. i’m sorry to be the one to break if to you.

if you don’t believe me, if you’re really sure your metabolism is different, go on and get it tested. tell your doctors. because it’s a major problem if it’s not working right.

similarly, i’m sorry, but if someone is the same height as you and a (very, like, +- 50 pounds) different weight, and neither of you have exisitng health conditions, you are not eating the same things/doing the same exercise. you have not broken the laws of physics.

possibly, one of you have untreated celiacs or something of the ilk meaning your body is actually malfunctioning. but if that’s true, i excluded you already, so shoo. get out of here and play in the sun with the other kids.

if you don’t believe this, there’s not much i can do to convince you. but i encourage you to count your calories for a month. find some tdee calculators. weigh yourself. make sure you count everything, it all goes down. check the math. (you can do any amount of time but a month is what you need for weight to be meaningful imo otherwise you’re just proving weight fluctuates a lot).

section eight: cico. or, why counting calories is not disordered eating

it can sure be a symptom of disordered eating, and it can certainly make disordered eating worse, but it isn’t an eating disorder.

also, assuming you’re not trying to verify the laws of thermodynamics, i don’t think counting every calorie is necessary. i have approximate values (500/meal, and around 300 in snacks), which i try not to go over or under.

yeah. i actually use calorie counting to make sure i’m eating enough in one sitting. some of my medication screws with my apetite and then i only eat like 300 calories and suddenly its like 11 and i need to go to bed but i’m hungry but eating before bed makes me feel terrible and it sucks.

but hey, according to some people, avoiding that is unhealthy.

okay i’m moving on before i get salty because the next section is touchy

section nine: eating disorders.

the three main eating disorders are listed way up there. they’re the first three. AN, BN, BED.

oh, yeah, binge eating? that’s actually disordered eating too. it’s not normal.

i’m not going to elaborate on the point because i absolutely know i can’t do it without getting really fucking angry that people call calorie counting disordered eating, like i haven’t watched a fifth grader eat one meal a day because she’s scared she’s overweight. like i haven’t watched a sixth grader cram food into his mouth until he’s sick because he’s worried he’s not bulky enough for sports. like i haven’t watched an eleventh grader tell me he hasn’t eaten anything since lunch yesterday, but it’s fine, he doesn’t want his mac and cheese anyway, since he needs to lose weight.

you think someone keeping track of some numbers is an eating disorder? then either you’re lucky enough to never have to deal with eating disorders on a personal level, and i’m very happy for you, or you have, and you should maybe reevaluate that.

alright i’m cutting myself off now whoop.

section ten: intuitive eating

you know, much like haes, i want to like this. it fits in with my bad-food-makes-me-feel-bad mentality. i’m angry and tired and hungry because i ate like, a late breakfast/early lunch and now i need to eat again because if i don’t eat every six to eight hours i have a medical condition that makes me feel like shit (an aside: unless you’ve been told by a doctor, you don’t need to eat every 2-3 hours. unless you’re a child or have an applicable medical condition, you can probably eat one meal a day and be firne.)

but much like haes, it now has a meaning i can’t in good consience endorse. i can’t stand for a movement that tells people who acknowledge weight makes their joints hurt that they just need to keep eating until they feel better.

section eleven: conclusion

i have a lot more thoughts but again i’m hungry. i meant to talk more about IE and my problems with it but maybe that will be its own post.

i won’t say i’m happy to talk about this because i can’t promise i am (see: eating disorder issues.), but i will most likely respond to constructive discussion if someone sees this and wants to. i can also provide sources. i hate going, “sources available on request” but i tried to provide some stuff for some of the heavily disputed/i already had a source for it and didn’t have to dig through google scholar to find information that’s been peer reviewed.

and i do sincerely wish everyone, at any size, that they fracture the disconnect between them and their bodies (oop didn’t talk about that either another time then) & that they find peace with who they are, and that they get to live happy & fulfilling lives.

[bi-dazai]

okay while we're on the subject of eating healthy and exercising, I want to vent/talk about weight loss. This is gonna be a rly controversial, very personal and extremely long post but I do want to make a point. I'm not going to discuss every fucking nuance of haes or my EDs. But for clarity, know that my eds are complicated and were mostly osfeds - minor anorexia osfed in high school and bed osfed when I was 18-19. after i realised how fat i was the minor anorexia came back and over the pandemic it became full scale anorexia nervosa.

I'm 5'3. The healthy weight range I should be in is in the high 40s-low 50s. I went up to TWICE that by the time I was just nineteen years old. It wasn't fun being fat. I consumed as much fat acceptance, fat activism content as I could, I pretended I was confident and happy even when I was fat. But I wasn't. Because people don't just get obese accidentally. A little overweight, yes. But obese? No. You get obese from depression, from giving up. You don't want to move so you don't. You're sad all the time, and the body positivity circles say eat comfort food, whatever and as much as it makes you feel better!! Do you know what that is? That's encouragement of BED. Do not say that. Because I did that. I ate sugar and junk food, I was still depressed.

I was reading these posts that were claiming fat people shouldn't be weighed at the doctor, that your weight shouldn't count, that BMI is incorrect and doesn't matter, etc etc. There were posts saying that they got "perfect bloodwork" (what even is that? I knew that was wrong, I've had chronic iron deficiency for a decade!) even though they were fat, so they had to be healthy, right? I got shown pictures of obese ballerinas and obese weightlifters blah blah blah. And I grew and grew, and I got to almost 85kg on the fast track to 100kg before reality smacked me in the face and I realised I was shortening my lifespan by decades.

Here's what it was like being obese!

- joint pain, constantly

- could barely walk anywhere without feeling out of breath

- couldn't find any fashionable, good quality clothes (plus size stores either carry unfashionable clothing, or fashionable but cheap quality clothing. I don't like to waste money on cheap clothes)

- more acne than I'd had in years

- oily skin

- more difficulty feeling "full"

- JOINT FUCKING PAIN

- rashes from skin rubbing against skin!

- even larger chest, making me MORE dysphoric

- back pain!!

- snoring - this is not just embarrassing. This is potentially deadly.

- DYSPHORIA

- KNEES. JOINT PAIN.

- DYSPHORIA

this was just things I felt physically, noticeably! The things that my fat was doing on the inside was even worse. Fat isn't just this layer of packing peanuts that appears on top of you. It coats your organs. It gets everywhere. It makes your entire body run worse.

Fat also makes it much more likely for you to not just GET cancer, but it it also makes it harder to FIGHT cancer. Being obese makes almost every single goddamn sickness on the planet worse because when you have THAT MUCH fat tissue the hormones and shit it secretes fucks EVERYTHING up.

Yes there are obese bodybuilders. Yes there are obese ballerinas. Let's talk about those two.

There are plenty of drs and dieticians who have pointed out the obvious - if an obese person was really, actually eating healthily and exercising every day, they would not stay obese forever. Its not magic, it's thermodynamics. CICO done right works for everyone. If you are eating healthy, appropriate portions for weight loss at your TDEE and exercising it would literally be IMPOSSIBLE for you not to lose weight!! Even more the heavier you are because when you exercise you carry around a lot more weight.

Obese weightlifters are still obese. They are not proof you can be obese and healthy. They are still going to die younger if they do not lose weight.

Let's talk about fat ballerinas. The only ones I've seen are trainee ballerinas, not professional ones. And their performance looks impressive at first, until you look closer. You notice their balance is never quite perfect, their control can be amazing and the best ever but they'll still be off. Why? Because fat moves around with your movement, and it displaces your balance and your line of movement. It's simply not possible to do something like ballet dancing as a fat person without risking major injury as well. En pointe is already stupid dangerous for the skinniest ballerina. Going en pointe at anything above 60kg is going to get progressively suckier the heavier you go. And god help your ankles because falling down will always end in a major injury.

I'm so fucking done with "fat acceptance". I'm tired of "body positivity" being a movement about obese middle-upper class white women and not about scars and disabilities etc like it was focused on in the start. I have no problems with Health at Every Size - every person should feel happy to workout, to eat healthy. I have no problem raising issue with people bullying others for their weight as well. That's wrong. But pretending that it's Healthy at Every Size is a fucking lie, and it's one that could've sentenced me to an early death. Healthy at Every Size said I was condemned to joint pain and oily skin and depression and exhaustion for the rest of my life based on cherrypicked sentences from studies that didn't agree with them. That "95% of diets fail" sentence in particular drives me up the wall. You don't need a diet to lose weight, you need healthy CICO, you need to eat below your TDEE, you need to eat healthy, and you need to exercise. All you have to do at first is go on a 10-20 minute walk, whatever pace you like, a few times a week.

You can BE fit, you CAN lose weight! You are not sentenced to having joint pain and an increased risk for cancer and a less effective COVID vaccine for life. You can change your body in incredibly ways. You have no idea what you are capable of.

There's this myth that weight loss takes keto and shakes and diet pills and crash diets etc. It doesn't. All it is is making sure you eat less than your TDEE, eating HEALTHY calories, and getting your heartrate up by exercising at least 175 minutes a week.

The human body is not meant to be obese. There's no such thing as a set point weight. There's CICO, there's nutrition, there's making sure your muscles dont atrophy. Weight loss and fitness isn't some magic thing that youre just born able to do. I was lazy throughout my entire teens. I thought fitness was something the popular girls did. It's not. It's for everyone. and everyone, especially in places with an obesity epidemic such as the US, UK, and Australia, should make use of it. It's a good thing. Walking is one of the best things you can do for your body, and it's incredibly rewarding in every way. Eating healthy and not eating until you feel like you're going to burst is rewarding in every way. And it's not like you can't ever have junk food again, you just have to limit it to a treat, a once or twice per week thing. And honestly, it makes it much more enjoyable that way.

Now I want to talk a little about my anorexia. My weight loss journey came to anorexia. This is because it was an eating disorder I'd had for a long time. I did not see a trainer or dietician, and I consciously decided to push myself too far. I consciously decide to eat less and exercise more when I am starving. This is not something that just happens because someone is eating at 1200cals. It happens because you have an eating disorder which you are born with. Saying people who eat 1200cals of healthy food a day and exercise right are "anorexic" is so fucking insulting to everyone involved. It's ableist and ignorant. 1200cals is also a pretty generous amount for anorexic ppl to eat. That's close to a binge in ED standards, so that should give you a reference for how offbase saying 1200cals is "anorexic" is.

My anorexia is healthy habits pushed into eating disorder territory. I eat healthy, yes, but I don't eat enough. I exercise, yes, but I often push myself too far when I'm already lacking energy. The advice I give people for health is correct, and I'm never going to go around saying "eat less than 1200cals" as weightloss advice. Eat less, sure, but there's a limit. Calorie counting is a good thing to do, tracking your macros and nutrients is good. But I do it too much.

I know what's healthy, a lot of ppl with restrictive and purgative EDs do. People with EDs can give some awesome health advice, we just can't follow it because we have a mental disorder. Believe it or not people with EDs discussing their EDs are not "pro-ana", pointing out that anorexia and people with anorexia are real and not some boogeyman you use to justify not losing weight and eating healthy is not pro-ana. Anorexia existing is not pro-ana and anorexics being anorexic has nothing to do with fatphobia.

this post is a rambling mess but i rly had to get some stuff clear on how I feel abt this stuff because it's getting concerning how much unhealthy shit, and then straight up ableist shit, that the fat acceptance crowd spews out.

A little exercise won't kill you, eating healthy won't kill you. You are not sentenced to ugly plus size fashion and joint pain and being out of breath for the rest of your life. Leave the Healthy at Every Size death cult and join the Health at Every Size movement. Let the doctor take your weight (it IS medically necessary). acknowledge that you are obese and it is affecting your health. It's scary but it can be the start of a new, healthy beginning. It was for me.

Losing 15kg has been the best thing in my life. Sure, the anorexia is there enjoying it for one reason. But the reason I truly enjoy it is because I've discovered what a healthier body feels like. I've discovered the joys of exercise, I've discovered the joys of eating healthy. I can fit nice clothes now. And I'm still overweight! I'm 66kg, that's 4kg away from the barest minimum acceptable healthy bmi. But I feel so so much better. I look better. I have a jawline! Good skin! Energy! It didn't fix me but it sure made me a hell of a lot better.

Please please try and eat healthy, eat an appropriate amount, go for walks. It's so so good, and if you do it right you WILL lose weight. You'll live past 50. You'll get to explore the world in a way you couldn't when going up stairs had you out of breath. You'll fit into that nice skirt you've been looking at. Your skin will clear up. You'll have energy and your mental health will improve.

It's so so fucking worth it to put effort into your health, like I cannot emphasise this enough. Please do it, I wish I could tell myself this when I was binging on junk because the FA crowd told me it was valid to comfort eat until I hurt.

[whoneedssexed]

Just GENUINELY curious; there is obviously science stating being fitter, skinner, is healthier and there is also science saying being bigger is okay, healthier etc. Is it then you guys believe the science for people being bigger is stronger/more accurate or more evidence? (Sorry if you've answered a question like this before, new to your blog!)

“Willett’s complaints are starting to look less credible, however, because no one has been able to make the paradox go away. One of the most popular explanations is that fat people get more aggressive treatment than thin people, because their weight raises red flags at the doctor’s office. This seems questionable: studies show that overweight and obese people tend to avoid doctors, get fewer preventive screenings, and receive worse treatment because they’re often misdiagnosed as “fat” rather than with a specific medical condition” 

“People are furiously looking for some way to make this not the case,” says Deb Burgard, a clinical psychologist in Los Altos, California who treats eating disorders. “And I think that bears some comment. Theoretically we should be very happy to find out that people aren’t dying the way we thought they were going to, that there’s not going to be this terrible outcome. That people at higher weights are going to be OK.”

“One of the most popular explanations is that fat people get more aggressive treatment than thin people, because their weight raises red flags at the doctor’s office.”

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Based on a critical review of the obesity and health literature we provide five models of how the hypothesized obesity and health relationship is conceptualized. We then apply these models to make sense of how recent Canadian public health reports and clinical practice guidelines conceptualize the issue of obesity, its causes and health effects, and appropriate responses. We show how conformity to dominant models of the obesity and health relationship by health sciences researchers, public health workers, and the media lead to activities that rather than promoting health, actually threaten it. These dominant models – and the activities derived from them – do so by diverting attention from the far more important issues of the quality and distribution of the social determinants of health. These approaches also stigmatize heavy individuals, doing little to promote their health. For these reasons, we call for an end to seeing obesity as a significant health issue.

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Obesity isn’t a disease state and weight loss isn’t a cure.

-------------------

This is a good blog post on The Eating Disorder Institute (formerly Your Eatopia) about the topic: “ Gaining Weight Despite Calorie Restriction ” The author includes many scientific sources.

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Losing approximately 10% of your body weight initially slows these life sustaining processes by approximately 15%. And people continue to restrict their energy intake, over time, these life sustaining processes can slow by as much as 30%. Metabolic suppression can also become more reactive over time and repeated bouts of starvation (aka “dieting”). So someone who has dieted in the past will have a metabolism that slows more quickly and more dramatically in response to food restriction compared to someone who has never dieted.

So a person can gain weight while restrictive dieting because an energy deficit causes the body to slow all the life sustaining processes of the body in favour of growing the fat organ, which helps the body to survive in times of stress.

This is some serious shit, people, and it’s a big part of the reason that intentional weight loss through restrictive dieting is so unhealthy.

----------------------------

1,200 calories is the recommended intake for 4-8 year old girls.

This 1200 calorie dietary myth sprung up in the wake of an overwhelming diet culture that’s intended to push women to prioritize drastic (and often unhealthy) weight loss. A diet like this will help you lose weight, but all that weight won’t just be from fat. You’ll also be losing muscle, hair, nails, sleep, blood cell counts, your menstrual cycle, bone density, healthy skin, a safe blood pressure, hydration levels, regular bowel movements,  the ability to feel warm without raising your thermostat to 75 and wearing 3 sweaters, a healthy relationship with food… Starvation is nasty.

If you are 1. older than four, and 2. are an active person who walks or works out on a regular basis, then you likely need to consume quite a bit more food in order to simply keep your body functioning. This isn’t just about giving yourself enough calories to keep your body working normally - It’s about having enough energy to actually be able to live the kind of life you want! Only eating your BMR (which is how most people get that 1200-1400 number) will only give you enough calories to sustain a coma. That’s it. If you want to get out of bed and exercise, eat more.

If you are between the ages of 19-30, then you’ll probably burn those 1200 calories simply by resting for 12 hours. Your body will naturally take advantage of it’s intake and use that energy in order to continue functioning. So don’t be afraid of actually increasing what you eat. Calories aren’t something to be afraid of, and limiting yourself so drastically can hurt you in the long run.

------------------------------------

this article is literally from an eating disorder organization about how often weight loss and “skinny is healthy” studies are bogus

this one is about pursuing weight loss being unhealthy

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This article explains in detail how “bikini / beach body” advertisements are based on biased ideals of aestethic superiority, and not on any notion of health.

This article shows an example of how doctors instantly assume that fat people’s heath issues are caused by their fatness; and how this results in under- and misdiagnosing.

This article explains various examples of size discrimination. It cites various studies.

This meta-analysis studied over 50 years of weight-loss research. it shows that, while diet programs can make you lose 5-10% of your starting weight in less than a year with relative ease, keeping the loss in the long-term (5 years) is difficult, even if you stick to the diet. basically, diet programs aren’t worth it - at best, the weight loss is minimal (2,5 lbs); at worst, you gain more weight than what you started with.

This is a list of scientific literature explaining how weight loss fails, weight cycling, weight gain, binge eating, food addiction, and the negative effects of weight stigma; as well as how you can have a healthy lifestyle without relying on diets.

This article explains again that diets don’t work - they don’t make you lose any significant amount of weight in the long term, and don’t make you healthy. It also explains the “obesity paradox”, where fat people are more resitant to various health issues than thin people despite most people believing the opposite.

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Doesn’t Obesity Kill?

Obesity does not kill 400,000 Americans a year (in fact, it ‘contributes’ to fewer than 30,000).

Fit Over 60s Live Longer Regardless of Body Fat

No tenable link between obesity and breast cancer type

No tenable link between diet and weight control and remission of type II diabetes

The J-curve relationship between BMI and mortality

Mortality risk for overweight and obese is no greater than for ‘normal’ when hypertension and diabetes are controlled for, (Anthony Jerant, Peter Franks. “Body Mass Index, Diabetes, Hypertension, and Short-Term Mortality: A Population-Based Observational Study, 2000–2006″ J Am Board Fam Med July-August 2012 vol. 25 no. 4 422-431)

Low-Calorie Diet Doesn’t Prolong Life (New York Times, August 29, 2012)

Shouldn’t Fat People Should Simply Eat Less and Move More?

In controlled settings people lose 10% of their weight on a diet, but one third to two thirds of the weight is regained within 1 year, and almost all is regained within 5 years. (“Methods for voluntary weight loss and control. NIH Technology Assessment Conference Panel.” Ann Intern Med. 1992 Jun 1;116(11):942-9.)

The preponderance of evidence shows that diets don’t work

No weight loss intervention shown generally effective post 5 years

Fat people as a whole metabolically the same as lean people, except that they’re bigger

Eating and weight gain not necessarily linked, study shows

Evidence for a bodyweight setpoint (energy homeostasis)

Medicare’s search for effective obesity treatments: Diets are not the answer. (Mann, Traci; Tomiyama, A. Janet; Westling, Erika; Lew, Ann-Marie; Samuels, Barbra; Chatman, Jason. American Psychologist, Vol 62(3), Apr 2007, 220-233. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.62.3.220 ) (PDF)

Isn’t There An Obesity Epidemic?

Americans have only gained an average of 14 lbs (women) and 16 lbs (men) since 1990 (Gallup)

Obesity: An Overblown Epidemic

The 1998 BMI definition changes made 30 million Americans overweight or obese OVERNIGHT

The Myth of the Obesity “Tsunami”

One-third of American Adults are Obese, but Rate Slows

Yeah, But What About the Children? Isn’t Fat Killing Them?

Childhood famine (that includes dieting and starvation) increases risk of type 2 diabetes

Adolescents who engage in unhealthy weight-control behaviors such as dieting and binge eating are three times more likely five years later to be overweight than adolescents who did not engage in those behaviors

Isn’t Weight a Lifestyle Choice?

Obesity largely determined by genetics, says study

Obesity is 77% heritable

Thin parents pass on skinny genes to children (October 4, 2011, The Independent, UK)

Insulin resistance. A multifaceted syndrome responsible for NIDDM, obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. DeFronzo RA, Ferrannini E. Diabetes Care. 1991 Mar;14(3):173-94.

But Doesn’t the Idea that People are Different Sizes Though Consuming/Exercising the Same Violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics?

In fact, in principle, the suggestion that a “calorie is a calorie” — all human metabolisms are the same Bunsen Burner — violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Isn’t there a Study that Disproves the Claim that You Can Be Fit and Fat?

That study is junk science. The preponderance of evidence shows that in fact, one can be fat and fit.

Isn’t Fat Unhealthy?

Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift (Linda Bacon and Lucy Aphramor, Nutrition Journal 2011, 10:9, 24 January 2011)

Higher BMI can lower risk for Alzheimer’s

Metabolic syndrome associated with decelerated cognitive decline in the very elderly

The case against the Type II diabetes “epidemic” in kids

You can’t eat your way to diabetes

‘Obese’ BMI does not harm current health of young adults, study says

Obesity not always tied to higher heart risk (Reuters, May 24, 2012)

Shouldn’t Fat People Try to Diet Anyway?

Although long-term follow-up data are meager, the data that do exist suggest almost complete relapse after 3-5 yr. (Miller, W. C. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1999 Aug;31(8):1129-34.)

In fact, size acceptance and health at every size may be a better approach to health than chronic dieting. (Bacon L, Stern JS, Van Loan MD, Keim NL. J Am Diet Assoc. 2005 Jun;105(6):929-36.)

Except that dieting can kill you, even when you’re fat and dieting down to a ‘normal’ weight.

And there are suggestions that frequent (intentional) weight loss diets reflect susceptibility to weight gain, rendering dieters prone to future weight gain. (August 9, 2011, K H Pietiläinen, S E Saarni, J Kaprio and A Rissanen. “Does dieting make you fat? A twin study” International Journal of Obesity | doi:10.1038/ijo.2011.160)

Healthy lifestyle habits are associated with a significant decrease in mortality regardless of baseline body mass index.  (Eric M. Matheson, MS, MD, Dana E. King, MS, MD and Charles J. Everett, PhD. J Am Board Fam Med January-February 2012 vol. 25 no. 1 9-15)

And adolescents who engage in unhealthy weight-control behaviors such as dieting and binge eating are three times more likely five years later to be overweight than adolescents who did not engage in those behaviors.

There are even further suggestions suggest that for many adolescents, dieting to control weight is not only ineffective, it may actually promote weight gain. (Alison E. Field, ScD, S. B. Austin, ScD, C. B. Taylor, MD, Susan Malspeis, SM, Bernard Rosner, PhD, Helaine R. Rockett, RD, Matthew W. Gillman, MD, Graham A. Colditz, MD. “Relation Between Dieting and Weight Change Among Preadolescents and Adolescents” PEDIATRICS Vol. 112 No. 4 October 1, 2003 pp. 900 -906)

Weight Regain Following Sustained Weight Reduction is Predicted by Relative Insulin Sensitivity, Trudy J. Yost, Dalan R. Jensen, Dr. Robert H. Eckel*, Obesity Research, Volume 3, Issue 6, pages 583–587, November 1995

[ccatvalentine]

Advertisements prey on our insecurities. They should be better policed. National laws are needed to ensure we are protecting our young people.

Genre – Speech     Audience – MP    Purpose – To persuade

Introduction

 Throughout the years, there has been a variation of standards of beauty like in the late 19th century when being overweight was a sign of wealth. Women are identified for their looks and men get praised for their successfulness and strength. Would you ever want to compare others? If no, then give yourself the same treatment. There is a theory called the Cultivation theory that suggests that repeated exposure to television over time can subtly ‘cultivates’ viewers’ perceptions of reality (basically meaning that if viewers keep on looking at advertisements of people, they will begin to believe that that is achievable and that they need to look like that).

  Female beauty standards

 Advertisements for women usually include the stereotypical makeup products and clothing. Fiji, having a large body was considered as beauty and they had no eating disorders but now that they have been influenced with media and electronics, these young people which they could be like them, changing their beauty standards and gaining an eating disorder as a result. I believe that female beauty standards are extremely unrealistic, fake and unattainable: these "influencers" will get tons of plastic and cosmetic surgeries and then, they will still photoshop and face tune all of the photos they post of themselves. This will cause young people to believe that this is actually what they look like and that they want to look exactly like that and will start comparing themselves. It's the people like Kylie Jenner that make young girls and boys want to be them, especially when they look into the mirror. People like Kim Kardashian make young girls want to be someone else when they get cosmetic and plastic surgery while saying they didn’t ger any, especially when they look into the mirror. In a study, 2 girls were given a Barbie doll and 2 other girls got given a Tracy doll (from Hairspray). The girls who got given the Barbie doll; said they were self- conscious whereas; the girls who got given the Tracy doll said that they were very happy. This just shows how advertisements can really prey on our insecurities.

 mental health

 In my opinion, I think that it is disgusting when advertisements always focus around one body, a body which is crazy slim. There should be national laws stating that these stereotypical “perfect” bodies be put off the media as much as possible and for advertisements to include diversity. People do go through emotional turmoil’s, “When I was 15, I was on social media every day, as well as reading tons of magazines, seeing girls who were much skinnier and prettier than me. I was like, ‘Why can’t I look like them?’ and it was just an unhealthy cycle of me starving myself but still thinking that I’m obese - this was body dysmorphia. This was just so toxic and I hated how I was (I felt extremely uncomfortable in my own skin). I told my best friend and she gave me advice to separate myself from the media, which I did. Now, I feel confident in my own skin and I am advocating for media coverage to be diverse.”

 Male beauty standards

  Males are always defining as handsome, strong and powerful in the media; which is extremely sexist as women are just seen as beautiful and nothing else. There are many different standards of beauty: for example, in the late 19th century when being overweight was a sign of wealth. By the 1930's the excess weight was associated with lower class and by the 1980's, body building became popular and mainstream - this is the start of marvel and DC. Beauty is subjective   and they’re so many factors which define beauty such as culture, location, time of living and country. Racism is involved in the media; for example, Bollywood where people of colour are portrayed as the villain and the people with light skin are always the main character, the hero who the media favours. Advertisements have a huge influence to the people of India - men and women in India have said that tv advertisements had influenced them to bleach their skin. In South Africa, there is 79.6 % of black South Africans and there is 8.9% of white South Africans. Unfortunately, the media representation of modelling in South Africa is primarily white models. This needs to stop!

 Conclusion

 We shouldn’t strive for the “perfect body” we should just be the best version of ourselves by eating healthy but also, having snacks as it’s bad for your health if you are restricting yourself on what you can and cannot eat but this doesn’t mean that we should overeat either. Besides, the best thing to do for your mental health is to separate yourself from social media and especially Instagram. As a result, we will stop comparing ourselves. You need to help stop this by spreading awareness.

 But please, remember that you are beautiful inside and no one is perfect.

[meatpower]

People always get mad when you say certain eating trends are disordered habits, bc ppl like to believe that whatever way they control their weight is inherently healthy, and any kind of restriction is a sign of health consciousness, they do it for their health and the weight loss is just a side effect, of course!

Way more ppl than one would think have disordered habits and nobody thinks twice about it because they're encouraged and the desired norm, especially for women... People will tell me I'm projecting when I say counting calories and being afraid of certain food groups is a sign of disordered eating but those things aren't normal or healthy. And people hate to hear that their eating habits might not actually be as healthy as the YouTube videos and Instagram influencers and "journalists" claim. Disordered habits don't equal eating disorder but that doesn't mean they're not issues.

All these things are pretty much marketed to women, if you want to "indulge" you have to go to the gym or for a run or at least for a walk to work it off. If you want to eat a nice treat, you need to work it into your calorie count and you should only eat "clean" for the rest of the day or week, because good food that isn't a kale salad or a Greek yogurt is a special treat you can only have on an occassion, and you should feel at least some guilt for eating it, otherwise you're a glutton and you're unhealthy and don't care about your body.

You need to have a meal plan so you know exactly what you're consuming, and you need to either stay away from anything outside the plan or prepare a gap in the calories so if you have something unexpected you won't go over your limit.

You need to count your macros, because we all know carbs are sooo unhealthy (nobody ever says why they're unhealthy, again it's just that bad-for-you catchphrase and if you do get a reason out of someone, it's related to weight), and if you want a sweet treat it should be a protein bar or a raw bar or some other healthy alternative that tastes like shit, because eating something just for the taste is disgusting and unhealthy. You will develop a heart disease and your blood pressure will skyrocket and the worst of all, you might go over your sugar limit if you have a kit kat!

You see a treat you like at the store? Well, why not buy it and enjoy it? Oh wait, you need to stop and consider what you already ate and what you plan on eating. And haven't you gained a few pounds lately? Is the number on the scale not going down? Well, then you should reconsider... Don't buy it, you have vegetables at home. And you want to eat sushi on the weekend with your friends, you need to save those calories.

You always need to strive to "improve your health" aka cut out more good food, try a new exercise, push your limits further, lose a few pounds. If you're simply happy with your body no matter the size or form, you should really watch what you eat or you'll become OBESE! And you will die of heart failure! And you're a bad role model! And you will be unlovable! And most of all, diet freaks will feel uncomfortable looking at your normal human body!

But when someone develops an eating disorder partially fueled by these trends, it's not pretty anymore and you can't sell it as self care, that's oh so awful and how could that happen... You just look at fashion magazines too much, silly! You know you can lose in a healthy way, right, like keto! Just cut out all carbs and you can eat whatever you like! Have you heard of intermittent fasting?

[baeluz]

Backstory Tingz

★TW: content about binge eating, restriction, sexual abuse, depression, alcohol abuse, and dysfunctional families★

Hello, hello, and welcome to my shit show of a life. Honestly, I don’t expect anyone to read this, but I feel like just posting this stuff will give me more accountability. Plus its easier to type than write, so lets gooo online journal. 

Since the pandemic started, I believe all of us have been going through rough times. From the poor to the people up at the top, we all have our own struggles. I’ve been blessed with a life of privilege to be born in a first world country (US), and in a middle class family, and I’m incredibly grateful for it. But some days I feel like such an asshole, because I feel like being able to binge is such a privilege.

Now I’m not saying that someone who’s poor can’t suffer from binge eating, but I personally feel so guilty when I do binge, not only because of my body looks right after, but also because of all the money, time and food wasted. While there are people out in the world starving, I’m here, unable to control myself from binging. What made this guilt worse was me living in India most my life, since that’s where my parents are from. I grew up seeing people on the streets, begging for food and money. 

As a child I used to be really fussy, and I would cry and scream until I got what I wanted. That mixed with a dysfunctional family, and sexual assault experiences from when I was a child gave me anxiety and depression from a really young age. And the only way I knew how to cope with that was drowning myself in music, isolating myself in my room and eating. It was weird, because I seemed like a happy kid that just likes being alone, but on the inside I was dying. I didn’t want anyone to see me, and I felt disgusted with myself all the time. I have a naturally curvy body, and since I was verging on obese as a kid, that part of me was very prominent. And you know the men in India, they stare at you like they ain’t ever seen a woman. It doesn’t matter if you’re a kid or a grown up, you got a vagina, they want it. Anyways, this made me wear jackets in scorching heat, made me not wanna look good because I thought maybe if I looked ugly they would stop looking, and made me want to binge more because of how disgusted I was with myself. 

I’m older now, and I know I can’t do anything about my body shape, and its not my fault I look this way. I’ve even lost all the weight, and started going to the gym when I was about 15 years old. But through those years, I used to starve myself so much, because I didn’t know anything about how to healthily lose weight. And that made skinny fat, so my thighs were still huge as fuck and I was so triggered by it. It didn’t help that I moved to Japan by myself, and everyone around me was such a smaller frame, while I was looking huge as hell taking up so much space. 

Everyone in Japan looked so skinny, and I wanted to wear the type of clothes they were, but I couldn’t do that. That made go through a cycle where I would restrict and walk like 30k steps a day, and then binge on the weekends. Once I discovered alcohol, shit went through the roof. I would buy 3 large cans of vodka soda, skip school and just drink and binge on food. It was so scary, I didn’t even realize what I was doing. Luckily that phase only lasted like 4 months and now I don’t drink alcohol at all, not only because of the binging but because of the type of person it made me. Once I even stole food from my roommate, but I quickly went to the grocery store and bought back another bag so she wouldn’t notice that I did. 

Once I graduated from high school I came back to the US and decided to really turn my life around. I took a gap year because I thought I really needed to work on my mental health, and also because I didn’t know what I wanted to do in university and didn’t want to waste my parents money. This is probably one of my biggest regrets in life lol. Please don’t take a gap year if you don’t have a strict plan or idea about what you’ll do. I was so lonely, because I don’t have any friends here since I didn’t grow up here. I couldn’t go anywhere because my parents both worked all day, so I had no car, and since we lived in the suburbs, nothing was nearby. It was so depressing being all alone with nobody to talk to since most my friends were busy with university. Plus all the arguing with my mom, and just us not getting along really made me want to kms. I think if I didn’t have my dog, I probably would’ve gone crazy. 

On the plus side, I started going to the gym and weightlifting. I started being more mindful of how I ate, and I was able to reflect on my emotions, and why I was acting the way I was. What was making me binge, what was making me feel so empty inside, and why was I finding it so hard to just “be normal”. I still don’t have the answers to all these questions, but at least I feel a bit more in control of myself than before. 

Since the pandemic started though, I’ve just been so depressed. The gyms were closed, financial situations got tight, my mom and I were fighting a lot more, and I started binging again. Throughout 2020, I was behaving the same way I was in Japan. I’d go on 3-4 hour walks, and then restrict, which would ultimately lead me to binge. Its evident that even when you feel like you’ve recovered and moved on from your disordered eating habits, its always in the back of your mind. Almost like an addiction. Its to the point that food is the only thing in my mind. After eating a meal, I’ll keep thinking about what I’m eating next, when I’m eating next, and to finish eating before my parents come home, because I hate eating in front of people. 

I’ve lost motivation to do everything I’ve loved, like writing songs, learning the guitar, doing yoga, singing, gaming, etc. Its just food, food, food, and its so scary. People don’t understand because its an internal thing. Those who’ve never been through it wouldn’t know. Like my mom, shes obese, but at least she doesn’t look at food like an enemy. She just likes to eat, she’s not ashamed of her body, and she’s also able to control how much she eats at a time. I wanna be able to look at food that way. 

Anywhoooo, now that all of that is off my chest, I’m dedicating this “blog” to 90 days of getting back on track, and healthily reaching my fitness goals once again. This is really just for me, but maybe if somebody who’s been through the same things I have reads this, they might find comfort in finding that they’re not alone, and maybe they’ll be motivated to join me. I’m going to get back into weight lifting, along with eating a healthy diet with just a bit of a deficit, because your bish has gained hella weight lol. I also want to get back into yoga and aim to be able to do the splits. My timeline goal is 12 weeks, but of course I wont be bummed if I don’t reach it because its not like I have anyone to show at the end lol, but I believe I can do it if I really stick to it. Fingers crossed I don’t binge. 

Thank you for reading if anybody has really made it this far <3

-Luz

[jamiebluewind]

Fantasy High Theory: Fabian has an eating disorder

TW: eating disorder symptoms, anorexia symptoms, abuse mention, death mention, violence mention, gun mention, alcohol mention, drug mention, trauma mention, smoking mention,...

Word Count: about 2100

I know this is a big assumption to make with what we have, but I couldn't ignore all the data and the warning signs. In fact, I think that even if Fabian does not have an eating disorder at this time, he's certainly at risk for one and needs the issues addressed before it gets worse.

Before I get into it, let me remind everyone that I am about to talk about a very heavy subject. Remember, stay safe and consider the warnings before you continue. You can always message me for a summary of the red flags or for an edited version if you need it. I would rather you be safe than to have you're like on my theory.

Okay? Okay. Let's start by defining a few things.

Eating Disorder: Any of a range of psychological disorders in which people experience severe disturbances in their eating behaviors and related thoughts/emotions. People with eating disorders typically become pre-occupied with food and/or their body weight/shape.

ARFID: Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder is an eating disorder characterized by eating very little food and/or avoiding eating certain foods. It does not include having a distorted body image (as occurs in anorexia nervosa) or being preoccupied with body image (as occurs in bulimia nervosa). People with avoidant/restrictive food intake may not eat because they lose interest in eating or because they think eating has harmful consequences. They may avoid certain foods because of their color, consistency, or odor. When it becomes more severe, it can cause substantial weight loss, slower-than-expected growth in children, difficulty participating in normal social activities, and sometimes life-threatening nutritional deficiencies.

Anorexia nervosa: Diagnosed when patient BMI (body mass index which is a rule of thumb measuring body size vs mass) is low for their age and height. Severity is classified as mild (BMI of greater than 17), moderate (BMI of 16–16.99), severe (BMI of 15–15.99), or extreme (BMI of less than 15). Hallmarks of anorexia include limited food intake, excessive monitoring of the calorie and fat content of food, fear of being “fat”, problems with body image, denial of low body weight, excessive exercise, food rituals, cold intolerance, mood swings, sleeping issues, chronic fatigue, distorted body image, and many more. Eventually, the body goes into starvation which cause a lot of bad symptoms.

Atypical anorexia nervosa: All of the criteria for anorexia nervosa are met, except the individual's weight is within or above the normal range.

Again, ANY BMI can still mean a person has an eating disorder. It is NOT confined to those that are underweight. The BMI is only there as a red flag and to help classify severity of anorexia. I want to make this very clear, not just for my theory, but for the people reading this who recognize parts of it in themselves or others. I'm about to give an example that gets... personal in order to show that people who don't fit the stereotype of being underweight can still have an eating disorder. How personal? My own.

I am overweight to obese (depending on the doctor and the range). I don't exercise much. I eat pretty well around friends. But I have an eating disorder. I just... don't get hungry most of the time, so I forget to eat a lot more often than is healthy. A LOT more. I've been to the hospital a few times due to dehydration. I've collapsed because I literally forgot to eat for two or three days. I could have died at one point because despite being overweight, I was eating so little that things just... stopped working. Again, I was overweight. People and doctors thought I was just lazy. I was told to eat less and exercise more. Even my blood tests came back fine until one day, they didn't. And even then, nobody listened. Somebody doesn't have to look how you expect them to in order to have a problem. Also, don't be afraid to reach out for help if you feel like some of this hits close to home or someone you know is showing symptoms. It's okay to need help.

So remember, eating disorders can affect anybody with any body. The important thing is to be kind, supportive, and encourage professional help such as cognitive therapy.

****

Now to list Fabian's risk factors (I only listed the ones I believe he has)

Dysfunction family: This is a big risk factor for Fabian. His father is chaotic evil and (despite loving his son) puts massive pressure on him and tries to make him conform to his ideal for most of Fabian's life. Fabian has seen his father abuse his crew and snap at the drop of a hat. His mother has been a heavy alcoholic and mostly absent his entire first 16 years and when she gets off alcohol, she puts an extreme amount of pressure on him herself.

Abuse: This is another big one. His parents have been verbally abusive, emotionally abusive, neglectful in a variety of ways, controlling, manipulative, isolating, and his mother rested his food intake. He could have also been physically abused in the guise of sparing.

Genetics: Fabian's mother is very slim. Using images of weights and comparing it to her shape, she in fact fits the underweight shape which may or may not imply a genetic component depending on if the normal body shapes are different for high elves or not.

Exposure to warped body ideals and weight stigma: Exposure to "body ideals" in places like the media (especially if at a young age) can increase body dysfunction and eating disorder risk. Weight stigma can make this worse due to discrimination and stereotyping based on a person’s weight. Fabian has actually been exposed to this a lot due to his father and the crew. He's a kid around very strong muscular people and he feels pushed to get stronger to live up to his dad. It's also very easy to imagine that crew members who were not strong or active enough got a very bad reaction from his father, which would reinforce the ideal. Some of this is conjecture, but it's not so far outside the realm of possibility to be impossible.

Participation in sports: He's on the Bloodrush team and is a fencer.

Pressure to have a certain body shape from family: I think this risk factor is there too, especially when his mother takes over training.

Bullying/Teasing: Fabian was actually bullied by peers when he first starts school, but I believe his parents were bullying him long before that.

Trauma and PTSD: Oh boy, is this solid. He was most likely traumitized by his parents before high school. He saw two new friends die the first day of school and nearly died himself, only saved by Riz. He watched two teachers die by gunshot right in front of him (and a staff member killed by bludgeoning). Fabian mentions having nightmares about Riz killing Daybreak which might have been due to it being via gunshot. He was forced to kill people due to the situation he found himself in. The person who was supposed to have been helping them the entire time (Biz) turned out to be an evil dude who trapped one friend in a palimpsest and wanted to capture another. He was stuck in jail for weeks! His family was attacked, his home was damaged, and his dad died (and by his hand no less). He and his friends almost died to a dragon. That's a LOT of trauma for a kid to try to process and Jawbone mentioned that he never came to visit him, so he probably dealt with a lot of it on his own.

Low self-esteem: This is unfortunately something else he has. Despite all the bravado, he doesn't know how to be a friend or have people like him for who he is (instead of who his parents are or how much money he has). He tries to put up a cool front, but he judges himself very harshly.

Perfectionism. One of the strongest risk factors for an eating disorder is perfectionism, especially self-oriented perfectionism, which involves setting unrealistically high expectations for oneself. If they fail to meet their high expectations, the person becomes very self-critical. Fabian has this type of perfectionism.

History of an anxiety disorder: This one is reaching, but possible. People often show signs of an anxiety disorder (generalized anxiety, social phobia, OCD,...) before the onset of an eating disorder and Fabian stays on edge a lot, worries excessively, puts up a front, and deals with nightmares.

Substance abuse: Fabian has had alcohol and drugs before the age of 16, his parents almost encouraging it. He smokes regularly. Addiction runs in his family as well with his mother being an alcoholic and his father doing multiple drugs. Neither parent even hides the fact that they take drugs and drink alcohol to excess, the crew probably took drugs and got drunk in front of a young Fabian, and Bill offered drugs to his friends upon meeting them.

History of using weight-controling methods and dieting: Fabian exercises a great deal. He skips meals. He has a limited number of things he will eat. There is a lot of evidence to back this up.

Limited social networks: This was a HUGE issue before high school. Fabian was very isolated. He had no friends, limited social activities, and lacked proper social support. Recently, he's been skipping class exclusively which on top of smoking a lot, puts distance between him and other people.

Long story short? Our boy is at risk. Big time.

****

List of common signs of eating disorders (including anorexia)

Limited food intake: Seen when he has mostly protein smoothies, his mother tries to give him limited rations, and when he refuses to eat with his friends more and more as the series goes on. The first incident of it was in Cool Kids, Cold Case where Fabian refused the food he was offered on two separate occasions, passing it to Riz both times. Once was after the battle with Daybreak and being stuck at the police station a good while. The other was when the teens were hanging out at Riz's appartment when Sklonda got takeout. Fabian's mom also makes him earn food as seen in the live show. This mentality could have very well been internalized, even with Cathilda there to try and give him more.

Excessive monitoring of the calorie and fat content of food: He worries about empty calories, how fattening something is, and removed the cheese from a slice of pizza and dabbed the oil

Fear of being “fat” or in a shape that is not the ideal: In episode 1 of season 2, he is very preoccupied with staying trim and tight.

Excessive exercise: He exercises who knows how long every morning plus for Bloodrush plus the times outside of that

Food rituals: This is interacting with food a certain way (like small bites or how it's prepared) which causes anxiety when not followed. The pizza event might be one, but it's hard to say without a pattern.

Sleeping issues: Fabian has issues with sleeping, dreaming, and nightmares. His father confirmed this and he himself mentioned his nightmares.

Weight loss: By comparing his previous official artwork with his new official artwork, it's easy to see that Fabian looks visibly thinner. He's also VERY cut. (very defined muscles requiring very little fat) for his age. He was muscular last year sure, but his chest and abs are much more defined this year. Being that cut means that despite how muscular Fabian is, he has been eating less and probably doing fat burning exercises, getting a lot of his nutrition from multivitamins and whey, and would have less energy than normal.

Negative energy balance/chronic fatigue: This is only a possibility, but it deserves being mentioned. If this is going on, it puts a spin on some of Fabian's other actions in season 2, episode 1. He showed up late on move in day and didn't really move anything (just carried a book), which might have been a character thing, but could have also been because Fabian is running on empty and capable of things like adrenaline fueled busts of energy, but otherwise dealing with low energy and fatigue.

Also, Fabian is smoking now which works as an appetite suppressant as is common among those with eating disorders.

(Signs with no evidence as of this post: problems with body image, denial of low body weight, cold intolerance, mood swings)

~*~*~*~*~*~

TLDR: Fabian is showing a lot of symptoms of an eating disorder and also over a dozen risk factors. The number of both is substantial enough to see a pattern. Enough that I sincerely hope that it's acknowledged during the season because if Fabian does not have an eating disorder, he is at substantial risk of developing one.

PS: I know it's data heavy, I might have missed a few things, and it could be totally wrong, but I seen enough there that I thought it might make for a solid theory. D20 is no stranger to heavy subjects and I think if they do cover it, they will do a good job (as always). If they don't, I still learned a lot making this theory and maybe a few of you will as well. ^_^

[shroom-n-doom]

ACTUALLY just straight up kill yourself for hating fat people. Fuck off. this is coming from a so-called "success story"- i'm 119 lbs and was 210 last year. But all the same, fuck off and kill ur self

damn, that is a success story congrats! I hope that's a healthy weight for you and that you maintain it and live a long and happy life. anyway, I don't hate fat people, I believe a lot of them, especially those in the morbidly obese category are struggling from an eating disorder. either binge eating, compulsive overeating or food addiction. and that must be hell honestly to battle every day with it. 

what I do hate is the bastards behinds haes who not only encourage these awful eating disorders but tell the poor people suffering from them that they will never recover and that losing weight is a waste of time and that they are fatphobic traitors for doing so.

also, I’m the furthest removed from pro-ana you could be I’ve struggled with eating for 4 years and recently hit one of the lowest dips since moving to uni. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. the only reason I’m more vocal about fat acceptance is that 2% of people in the UK have a restrictive eating disorder (admittedly that figure is estimated to be around 6% more due to undiagnosed cases), however, 61% of adults are overweight or obese. I don't know where you’re from but here in the UK the NHS is literally about to collapse and the increased number of preventable ailments (diabetes, heart disease, cancers - all of which the risk is increased by obesity). On top of that, I’ve witnessed first hand how obesity can rob someone's life away so it really does affect me and I am going to be vocal about it till there is no longer an obesity epidemic, and an obese child is a rarity.

[anothergirlrecovering]

Dietician day two

This dietitian is honestly so sweet and compassionate and I actually think that might be what I need right now. She weighed me first and then didn’t actually say anything about my way initially and we came back in and she asked how my week was and I said good and then I asked her how hers was and I was surprised because usually when you ask that people generally just give you another oh it’s good but she actually was authentic and sharing about how she took her kid to school this morning and since the holidays she’s been trying to get back into the swing of things and she feels like she’s finally getting back into that groove and it wasn’t shared in like an inappropriate over sharing kind of way but more so as an authentic connecting aspect which I actually really liked because it made her more human and made it easier to connect to her because I think it’s hard to want to see a dietitian when there’s no relationship there. She asked me what my thoughts were about last time Because she knows that sometimes her perspective isn’t the same as clients perspectives and she wanted to know how I was feeling about everything and when I thought after I left. I explained that actually really like her and was surprised by how nice she was because it’s so hit and miss for dietitians where sometimes they are very by the book and intense about doing things the right way and she kind of explained a little bit of her role with pushing me but always doing it from this place of caring and how she knows the last time she had been pushing me and I had gotten a little bit triggered and upset and I explained that I expected that because there wouldn’t be progress made if I wasn’t being pushed and I explained how I think since our last session that it just made me think a lot about my relationship with food and I think it was kind of sobering and disheartening because it made me really think about the fact that I’ve never had a healthy relationship with food you know as a kid it was stealing food from neighbors homes in hOrding and begging kids for leftovers and always being ravenously hungry and now where I thought I’d been doing well but obviously I have a lot of anxiety about different things and I explained how I think a lot of anxiety is around good or bad right and wrong and a lot of times my anxiety gets bad and it’s like I would rather eat nothing then eat the bad thing or the wrong thing and she asked where that’s coming from and I explained a lot of it I think has been ingrained through my parents because they’re so neurotic and she kind of went on a little bit of a tangent about my parents being unhealthy and rigid and she was like I don’t mean to sound like I’m judging them but that’s just kind of the perception that I’m getting From what you are saying and I was like no they really are neurotic and then I burst into tears and started crying and saying I don’t want to be neurotic and like them and I think what was hard about this week was realizing that you know I think initially missing breakfasts and lunches were truly just because I was busy and not thinking about it and now at this point when I’ve thought about actually adding it back and I realize I have a lot of anxiety about doing that and I don’t want to be crazy and neurotic and struggling and as crazy and stupid and irrational as it sounds there’s also that part of me that’s like if you are seeing a dietitian you should be sick and you should be losing weight and I told her about a comment someone made to me about my weight recently and how upsetting it was And just how I do want to be better. She also asked if I’ve been actively restricting and I said no not with like a mindset of I’m trying to skip this meal to lose a half a pound but have I skipped meals and technically have no one else to blame besides myself? Yes. Give me a worksheet about values and asked me to circle the ones that fit me and to start my top three to help me see when I am recovering for. She asked me about how challenging the voice was going and I said I was doing it and then we talked very specifically about breakfast because breakfast is the hardest and she asked me what are used to like and I was like honestly it’s hard to know because I feel like everything ends up making me feel sick in general and I’m not really sure why and she basically brought up having things like bagels or yogurt or nuts and a banana or something and she asked what I liked and I said that I did love bagels but like am I going to swing by Panera every day no because it’s out-of-the-way since she got this great idea where I go to Panera want to week and get a bunch of them for the rest of the week and that made my anxiety go up and you started writing things down and I explained how terribly worried I am that if I start eating I’ll end up Ravenous which is what it was like for me as a kid and a teenager and she brought up time in recovery and I explained that I actually don’t really remember a whole lot of that but I was working in a setting where we had breakfast snack lunch snack and then I would have dinner so it was easy to eat in a very structured way because that’s what the kids were doing so I assume it was fine because I remember that I would weigh myself like every day to make sure that me eating Oreos and things like that weren’t going to actually make me balloon up. I also asked about my weight and what her goal weight for me is which also increase my anxiety because she was like honestly I’m not really worried about figuring that out at this point because I just want you to get to a healthy weight and I said that I knew from my height and my weight what the 5 pounds over 100 room was so I know what most people said expect me to be but the thought of being that weight terrifies me and she said that most people generally do feel their best when they are at or around that weight or a little bit above of the below but she said let’s not worry about that right now we can figure it out as we go more importantly we need to get you to a healthy weight. I said OK and she asked me when I used to eat for breakfast back then when things were going well and I was like well back then it was easy because I would have one kid in the morning and we would basically eat breakfast together but like I love pancakes but like obviously I can’t really make pancakes every morning and she was like so maybe in the morning time is and when you have your highest energy which is fine that’s not everybody but she was like do you have And microwave or fridge at your job and I was like neither but I can bring a cooler but I microwave is there on Mondays and Thursdays so she quickly wrote that down and was like well you can make pancakes and I before I keep them in the fridge to take with you for Mondays and Thursdays could you put nut butter on it and I was like yeah I mean over the weekends I do generally do things like that and I explained that over the last weekend I had waffles with peanut butter and maple sera up and strawberries and Chia seeds and hemp seeds and she was like you that sounds good I want to come eat at your house and I was like well there’s a chef in the family so I assume I’ve learned a thing or two and she was like well that sounds like a great meal and I was like yeah it was. She asked about me getting the bagels and if it was something that I could do you and I said I would try it so that’s better than no and I honestly just sat there the whole time with my eyes filled with tears about to bring them over and she was like I can tell that I’ve really triggered you a lot I was like just a little hand she wrote on my little paper when she was getting ready to leave that she’s giving me permission to eat and she was like I feel like that something you need to have you do you have my permission to eat and I was like information to get better and she was like and permission to get better and she wrote that down to with a smiley face. We had also talked about my parents and how she said she will let me talk to Lynn about setting boundaries with them which I didn’t really say anything to because it’s not all the time that my parents say things to me about nutrition but I explained that it just creates a much anxiety because I’m like what if GMO it really does cause autism and she was like but your parents live in the what if’s and that’s so terribly anxiety provoking and not something that you want for your life. She was like maybe next time they say something you can be like listen mind dad I am working on having a healthy relationship with food right now and I don’t want to look at any articles and she was like they do you know what you have an eating disorder right and I was like I mean not really they know that I had one but even then I’m not really sure that they believe it. She asked me about accountability with breakfast and if I would be willing to ask anyone to help me stay accountable or just to tell somebody that I was going to do it and I was like honestly no because I don’t want it to set up unhealthy dynamic’s with people or for people to think I’m doing worse than I am or I mean I guess I’m not doing great but I don’t want that to become a knowledgeable thing and she was like you can also email me I can be that person I do that for people and I just said OK and she was like no really you can and she was like or we can do recovery record that to whatever would be helpful. I said OK but we didn’t actually really talk anymore about that and since we didn’t set up recovery record, I didn’t say anything further. I also mentioned feeling like my weight was fine and being worried about that we came and she was like I’m not trying to plump you up and make you obese but I am trying to get you healthy and she said that I did lose weight from last week and I am currently under weight which is what I knew.She asked me to follow her into the copy room while she made a copy of my goals for the week and I did and she was like I didn’t ask a lot of questions I typically end up asking people but things like movement and I was like don’t worry I like don’t exercise and she was like really OK good because I was going to say you can’t be exercising right now while your weight is trending downward. She said we need to see you in the healthy range before you even think about doing exercise and I was like actually hate exercise but I do a few court building things that the physical therapist has asked me to do and she reminded me that half I’m not eating then my body is going to pull energy from the muscles and I was like yeah glycogen stores are depleted within 2 to 3 days and she was like see you do you know all of this and I was like I know it’s just I guess hard to apply sometimes.

[ctrl-alt-cait]

I’m Fat, and People Need To Get Over It.

When you deal with the medical system regularly (and when you deal with the general public, people at your gym, people at your school, your friends, your family, your neighbors, etc…) you probably know what an emphasis everyone puts on weight.

You get measured for BMI in public school PE, your doctor probably has it on your chart, and if you’re over (or under) a specific number, you’re going to hear about it. A lot. And there are a TON of reasons why the BMI chart is not scientifically sound in the first place: a few, summarized, you can read here. There are a lot of issues with basing health off of weight, and “ideal weight” off of health. Systems like this often ignore the amount of muscle, bone, water, and fat that your average human has, for example. And then, beyond that, even when you do body mass composition scans (which are way more helpful for health predictors), these numbers fail to take into account quite a few things which have bearing on your weight.

Sure, it’s easy to tell me that there are a string of numbers which should determine my body fat percentage. It ranges anywhere from 10-12% for essential fat to live, up to 31% as the borderline for acceptable edging on overweight. 32% plus is considered overweight. And this number can be helpful to me, because now I know that my body fat percentage is about 35%, at the lower end of overweight. And that tells me, in a truly scientific manner, what my chubby looking body is made up of. It still doesn’t take into consideration a lot of things we should look at when treating a patient: economic status, ethnic background, regional background, genetics, family history, mental illnesses, physical illnesses, comorbidity, or previous healthcare. You can hypothesize about why I’m fat all day long, why anyone is fat or underweight, why any of us are measured by this metric at all- it’s theoretical, and it’s interesting, until it’s you, and then suddenly it isn’t very fun anymore.

I have been, since I was 11 and hit menarche, overweight. It has fluctuated a bit over the years, as I’ve struggled with various health issues, and realized that I have at least three different competing illnesses that mess with your endocrine system and metabolism. And yet, I was a sports playing child. My parents emphasized eating your veggies, and limiting sweets. I go to the gym 3-4 times a week, now, and eat a pretty low carb, fiber and protein full diet. I cut out foods that I have gastrointestinal sensitivity to. I have my medical issues closely monitored, and my chronic pain is followed carefully. My heart passes all the tests I’ve had done on it. My liver is fine. My blood tests are well within average. My lungs are pretty meh, but that’s linked to chronic bronchitis. I can do 45 minutes of cardio and get that pulse rolling up at “weight loss levels” every time I visit the gym. I have tried super restrictive keto diets, anti-inflammatory diets, low fat diets, low carb diets, food tracking, visiting registered dieticians, taking nutritional classes myself, super calorie counting diets, etc.

But I’m still fat.

And I run into the roadblock of weight every time I see a doctor.

It has taken years for me to understand the true consequence of dealing with weight in the medical field. It’s simply true that overweight patients get worse care. Weight can be a huge issue in the social world. Obesity stigma has wide ranging public health implications. Being overweight makes you predisposed to eating disorders: being underweight does too. We are obsessed with physical appearance, and we ignore mental health quite handily, setting us up for a crisis of health, both mental and physical. I have had doctors I was seeing for entirely different issues, unrelated at all to weight, tell me that my problems would melt away if I would just lose weight. Some of the greatest hits:

The doctor who told me, in highschool, that I should just walk “for four hours a day after school” to force my body to lose weight.

The psychiatrist who told me that my mental health would improve when I graduated high school because “boys will stop being ashamed to admit they like fat girls, and you will finally get some attention, which will improve your self esteem.”

The doctor who, I found out recently, told my parents that gastric bypass would fix all of my problems, while I was in an urgent care clinic for completely un-weight-related complications.

The doctors who told me that my neurological symptoms were caused by weight, and not the permanent damage I had in my shoulder, or the other health conditions I had, and then accused me of lying about my diet.

And, of course, the psychiatrist who told me that it was okay to have an eating disorder for “a while, as long as you lose weight while doing it” when I expressed that being on a super-restrictive diet was giving me horrible physical side effects and what I feared may be long lasting mental ones too.

I have been recommended unsafe supplements, medications, diets, workout regimens, therapies, and lifestyle change plans to lose weight, all under the guise of helping me. Doctor after doctor has returned my truthfully filled out forms about my exercise and diet with doubt, and labeled me untruthful. Because to them, it is impossible- how can someone live healthily and still be overweight? People ignore the complications of healthcare in bodies that don’t fit a particular mold- take my friend who’s lost her appetite and a clinically significant amount of weight without meaning to, and can’t get a doctor to take her symptoms seriously, because isn’t that what women want? To be thinner? Or, for example, the doctor who was recently in the news for ignoring the symptoms of cancer in an obese woman so long that it metastasized and killed her. Our culture disregards the fact that simply because we know some health complications can come from being overweight doesn’t mean we need to stop looking for a definite conclusion. People of all weights need to be tested, and diagnosed accurately, because assuming all health issues stem from being over or underweight in anyone who doesn’t fit the flawed BMI chart is a public health risk we should not be taking. Perhaps part of the issue is that people of lower incomes and certain ethnic groups are more likely to be outside the range of accepted BMIs, and so they don’t have the recourse to demand the kind of testing the wealthy can. Perhaps part of the issue is that, when it comes down to it, doctors are only human, and humans have an inextricable bias to them that is heavily influenced by their culture.

This bias kills people of non-white ethnic groups, marginalized religions, different body types, non-straight sexualities, and gender-nonconforming people all the time. We have to realize, at some point, that doctors can be, and frequently are, wrong. That doesn’t mean you need to give up on allopathic medicine, and live in the woods with your essential oils to cure everything. But it does mean that we have to consider that maybe some people aren’t getting the best care, the care they deserve, because they are fat. There is a link, in certain cases, between being overweight and heightened risk factors for comorbid diseases. You are more likely to have sleep apnea, gout, osteoarthritis, cardiovascular issues, and gallbladder problems. This has, so far, been pretty well linked. But what drives me nuts about the concern-trolling comments on pictures online of overweight women, on articles about loving your body, on research about health, and in person from doctors and everyone else under the sun: that doesn’t mean we don’t deserve to be heard, to be cared for, and to be thoroughly diagnosed. Fatness does not come first.

An example of fatness coming first when, for patient quality of life, it should not, would be certain styles of pain management. This is a field of study that I’m very familiar with and have also been a patient in many times. If I go into my doctor and complain of a full body pain that fatigues me, and makes my life difficult and miserable, I would expect to be treated for the pain. I would expect a pain medication to be prescribed, and tests to be done. Which, side note: I wasn’t asking for opiates. I was asking for a longer term anti inflammatory type of pain relief medication that would hopefully also lower system irritation. But, in my personal case, as a fat woman, I was denied pain medication, told to lose weight, and referred to another doctor.

What do I do in the interim? Suffer in pain, because weight loss is not exactly a quick and easy option, especially after all the things I’d already tried? Be miserable, because a doctor didn’t believe me that I’d put in years of good faith effort to be healthy, and passed almost all the other metrics for it? That’s exactly what I did. I suffered in pain, because no one I saw would give me a prescription other than “weight loss”, and I waited patiently for three months to see the other doctor. When I got to the other doctor, she grilled me about my lifestyle habits, accused me of “not wanting to be better”, told me she wouldn’t prescribe pain medication, and only decided to do a physical examination because I literally described my symptoms in textbook detail. She did what could have only been a 3 minute evaluation of my pain symptoms, pronounced that I was correct about my own damn body and did have fibromyalgia, and then reiterated that she wouldn’t prescribe pain medication until I lost some weight.

So we have multiple doctors in this practice network, now, that know full well I have a debilitating pain condition, who will not prescribe me as needed pain medication because I’m too fat.

Well, unfortunately for them, and me, I didn’t lose weight. I couldn’t lose weight. There was absolutely no healthy, no fad or yo-yo diet way for me to lose weight at this point. There still probably isn’t- I take several supplements that can support weight management, but aren’t contraindicated with my other medications. I live my healthy lifestyle. I am still in pain.

I am still fat.

I will always agree that finding the cause of pain, or discomfort, or disease is necessary to a patient for them to live a good quality life. We shouldn’t be out here blindly medicating people. But we also shouldn’t allow people to suffer while standing on a perceived moral high ground, dangling the carrot of relief over them as though somehow, when they jump through a high enough hoop, we will be able to say, “see? It was your fatness all along.” and the problem will be gone. Even in the face of plain diagnostic results, fatness becomes a quicksand to medical intervention. In part, I imagine it has to do with that aforementioned moral high ground. We have come to view weight as a moral marker, beyond even our cultural obsession with looks. There are “bad” foods and “good” foods- no in between, no moderation, no internal discussion about the harmfully dichotomous nature of declaring fatness a moral failing and thinness an idealized dream. We look down upon “fat slobs” and mock them in our comedies, our dramas, our romantic movies. A fat woman is not desirable, and a fat man is a travesty. Conversely, we will also mock thinness when it goes outside of the accepted range- women with “pancake” chests and men with “noodle” arms. This cultural bias is popular, it’s deeply held, and it is dangerously intertwined with the doctoral hands that hold our lives, our health, and our happiness. Even among overweight people, I’m still nowhere near as stigmatized as people a few sizes bigger than I am, and that breaks my heart.

The biggest thing nagging at my mind through all of this, as I talk about all the ways in which I’ve tried my best to fit into the medical idea of what “healthy” is, is that people deserve care regardless of whether or not they are willing to, or are trying to lose weight. People deserve care, love, acceptance no matter whether they are unhappy with their weight or not. Beyond even the issue of how I have been pressured to make many lifestyle changes, most of which I’m happy with, is the issue of people who should not have to conform to any standard but happiness to get a good quality of life. There are only so many plates you can juggle in your life, and I would never begrudge someone spending the hours of daylight I spend on fitting into an allopathic definition of “trying to be healthy” on something more enjoyable and fulfilling for them.

I could philosophize more about being fat, and the many issues we face in this culture: about the lack of affordable and comfortable clothing, the stigma of working out at the gym, the mockery, the bullying, the laughter, the jokes, the culture of abuse that has led me to psychological issue after psychological issue, the body dysmorphia I struggle with, and the healthcare battle ahead. After all that, though, I will still. Be. Fat.

So I would like to cordially invite all of my doctors, and everyone who has had the passing thought, or the gall to mention it to my face, all of the people in the society I have to coexist with, to get over it. Get over my weight. Get over the hump of grilling me on my daily habits, and tsking like some overblown moral judge when I decide I want to eat a cupcake. Get over your reluctance to take me seriously when I come in with a genuine medical issue. Get over your inability to prescribe me medications that would let me live my life happily. Get over the euphemisms for being overweight, and the skirting around your own implicit bias towards fat people. Get over “heavier girls” and “curvy girls” and “husky men”. Get over all the terrible connotations you have towards the word fat, and the immediate need to correct me like you’re doing me a favor when I say that I am, in fact, fat. I get that you want to be kind. But when you treat the reality of my existence like an insult, it can feel kind of shitty.

It’s not an insult. It’s not a psychological disease. It’s not the body dysmorphia talking.

I am just, plain and simple, a fat woman. It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay. There are so many things to love about my body- it is functional in so many ways. It carries me to school and back. It enables me to learn amazing things, and experience wonderful days. My body can take me through the forest, my legs can get me to the top of a hill. And if yours can’t? That’s just fine too. Body positivity gets a lot of flack for “normalizing and romanticizing unhealthy behaviors”. But hardly anyone (save a few outliers that the world wide powers of the internet will enable you to find) sees the body positivity movement and decides to become unhealthy because of it, not to mention the fact that average sized people rarely receive that kind of feedback for other “unhealthy” behaviors. It is not a bad thing for us to love ourselves, whether we are disabled, or fat, or outside the cultural beauty norms for any other reason. When I look in the mirror, I struggle with my appearance because other people have told me to for so long that it feels like it’s stuck in my very bones. Would it be such a bad thing for me to not feel that way? Would it be bad for children to grow up loving their bodies for being such miraculous things, without struggling to access fair healthcare, job opportunities, and peer groups?

I’m fat, and I’m happy. It’s time for the world to stop worshipping the God of Outward Appearances, and leave my personal healthcare business alone.

[orgy-of-nerdiness]

Eating disorder TW

Super fucking triggered lmao

It's like the universe conspired to trigger me

I made myself puke earlier this week. It was never something I did regularly... I was never very good at it and it was more about punishing myself for eating. This time it was because I've been dabbling in restriction and I'd been planning to not eat that evening but then friends asked me to go out to dinner with them and I told myself I'd allow myself to do it on the condition that I threw it up after.

I talked about it in therapy today. It was a hard conversation. Talking about it makes me self conscious, and this was my first time really talking about it with this therapist beyond like the basic facts.

I went to a SMART meeting right after and it ended up being just me and two other people who I knew already so it was a kind of intimate meeting. Having multiple maladaptive behaviors came up, and I mentioned having a history of an eating disorder and that it was something I still occasionally struggle with. I said that, unlike self harm or any of my other mental illnesses, it's something I have a really hard time talking about bc of shame and stuff. I was asked to elaborate and I explained that the minute you mention having an ED/having had an ED, people become aware of your body and weight and pass judgements and draw conclusions, and I hate that.

I was about to elaborate about my fear that everyone looks at me and assumes it must be bulimia or binge eating because I'm "too fat to be anorexic" when the guy asked me something about "my bulimia." I'd never said anything about purging or anything to indicate what eating disorder I had, so this was completely his assumption. I pointed out that people make assumptions about what eating disorder you have like that he'd just assumed bulimia, and he was like you're right, I did just assume, and he apologized.

I changed the subject pretty quickly. But fuck. Like literally one of my big fears about bringing up having an ED is having someone say something to suggest that their assumption is that it's bulimia or binge eating.

I already feel like my restrictive eating disorder is fake bc I'm fat at a healthy weight. I feel like everyone assumes I have no self control and like they look at me and see the fat girl. I was well into the obese BMI range when I was in high school and I still feel like people somehow look at me and can tell and still see me as the fat girl. That no one would believe that I starved myself and ended up at a borderline underweight weight at one point.

Like everyone looks at me and sees a girl who binges. And I did/do binge when restricting, so it feels like a confirmation of my fear that I'm not "good enough" at restricting and that my binging was proof that my ED wasn't "real."

[chase-lynn329351]

Binge eating is believed to be the most common disorder in the United States. It most likely begins during your early childhood or can begin later on in the years. You have similar symptoms to bulimia or binge eating subtype of anorexia. With this disorder you typically eat large amounts of food in a short period of time and you tend to feel a lack of control during binges. You don’t restrict calories or use purge behaviors, such as vomiting or exercise, to compensate. You are eating a large amount of food rapidly until you become uncomfortably full. When you start to have an episode of binge eating you start to feel the lack of control. People with this disorder often are overweight or obesity.  This increases the risk of medical conditions such as heart diseases, strokes, and 2 types of diabetes. It occurs on the average of once a week for 3 months which is marked as distressed when present. Something most people overeat on occasions such as for holidays, family or friends events. When they are over eating they try to eat inscret or alone to not get judged. People with this disorder tend to feel depressed, ashamed, guilty or upset about eating. There are things that can help you, but dieting may cause you to binge eating more than unsal. If you don’t want to seek help and you’re sure you're having symptoms at least try talking to somebody you trust. A loved one or someone who you trust may help you take the first step to seeing a health recovery. They can become an expert at hiding it which makes it hard for you to detect it. The causes of this disorder is unknown but it can be genetic, biological factors, long term dieting, or psychological issues that's increased at your own risk.