fat people don't have eating disorders

peckish_pomegranate

"The reality is that fat people are often supported in hating their bodies, in starving themselves, in engaging in unsafe exercise, and in seeking out weight loss by any means necessary. A thin person who does these things is considered mentally ill. A fat person who does these things is redeemed by them. This is why our culture has no concept of a fat person who also has an eating disorder. If you’re fat, it’s not an eating disorder — it’s a lifestyle change.”
— Lesley Kinzel

"I just want to nail this to every stable surface I can find. I cannot count the amount of times that I’ve seen fat folks being encouraged, cajoled, and even forced into behaviors that would be recognized as disordered eating/exercising patterns in thin folks.

Pretty much everything that’s done on shows like The Biggest Loser would be called out as pro-ana/pro-orthorexia in a thin person. Exercising past the point that it hurts, to the point where you’re throwing up, even injuring yourself? Berating yourself because you didn’t lose ENOUGH weight this week? Constantly talking about how fat is weakness and thinness will make everything better, about how you can’t stand to be your current weight anymore? Emphasis on weight as a sign of how much control, strength, and worth you have? Viewing food as bad, as a temptation to sin? Constant sharing and talking about tips on how to minimize food intake, how to lose weight?

That sounds exactly like every pro-anoexia/pro-bulimia blog I’ve ever seen. It’s also what fat people are told we need to be doing to ourselves until we’re thin."

Just gonna leave this here.

- a fat person with an eating disorder

stines72

Whoever came up with the idea that it's only an eating disorder if you're thin (anorexia) is a moron. Eating disorders are mental and have no correlation with ones weight.

OneDimSim

"The reality is that fat people are often supported in hating their bodies, in starving themselves, in engaging in unsafe exercise, and in seeking out weight loss by any means necessary. A thin person who does these things is considered mentally ill. A fat person who does these things is redeemed by them. This is why our culture has no concept of a fat person who also has an eating disorder. If you’re fat, it’s not an eating disorder — it’s a lifestyle change.”
— Lesley Kinzel

Just wow - thanks for sharing!
As a "fattie" i can relate....

BlueObsidian

Beautifully said. After years of yo-yo dieting, I had developed such disordered eating (particularly binge eating disorder) and a horrible view of myself. To start getting healthy, I had to stop hating myself and beating myself up every time I ate something "bad."

sati18

agreed, an eating disorder is an eating disorder whatever your weight

Mokey41

Fat is also an eating disorder because the fat person will make just as many excuses for why they are fat as the anorexic will make for why they are thin. The link is non stop thinking about food whether it's eating more or less.

quirkytizzy

Whoever came up with the idea that it's only an eating disorder if you're thin (anorexia) is a moron. Eating disorders are mental and have no correlation with ones weight.

This. A million times this.

peckish_pomegranate

Fat is also an eating disorder because the fat person will make just as many excuses for why they are fat as the anorexic will make for why they are thin. The link is non stop thinking about food whether it's eating more or less.

Being fat is not an eating disorder because being fat isn't just caused by eating too much- plenty of thin people eat too much. Moreover, people are fat for intersecting reasons: health, genetics, lack of information about nutrition, not having access to healthy food, habits formed in childhood, etc.

I also want to make it very clear to you that fat doesn't mean unhealthy. There are plenty of people who are healthy and overweight. There are also people who are thin and extremely unhealthy.

Fat people don't have the option to just "not think about food" because society forces our bodies and what we do with them to not just be an (inaccurate) reflection of our health, but also our character. Overweight people are seen as lazy, no willpower, unkept, sloppy, greedy, and inferior. It's not that simple. So when I think about how much I would like a piece of cake, I'm not simply thinking about how nice a piece of cake would taste, I'm thinking "what will people think of me because I eat this?"

Instead of accusing people who are overweight of making too many excuses, why don't you instead examine the excuses you are making by being ignorant about how society views fat people and the implications it has on public health.

bcattoes

Comparing fat and anorexic seems silly. Anyone, at any weight, can have an eating disorder. Advising a fat person to eat less is not necessarily comparable to the actions of an anorexic.

Best advice for anyone with an eating disorder -- stop watching Biggest Loser and reading pro-ana blogs. That's actually good advice for everyone IMO.

EatYourVeg

The definition is ;
"Any of a range of psychological disorders characterized by abnormal or disturbed eating habits (such as anorexia nervosa)."

So you can be fat, thin or perfect. It's all a matter of one's mentality of their physical condition.

Scandinavia

My doctor wouldn't admit me to the eating disorder treatment center when I was 150 at 5'7.

She only admitted me when I was 135. AFTER she told me I could still lose 5lbs.

Mokey41

I also want to make it very clear to you that fat doesn't mean unhealthy. There are plenty of people who are healthy and overweight. There are also people who are thin and extremely unhealthy.

Fat does mean unhealthy. Even if at this moment in time you have no health issues there are very few obese people who live a long, healthy life. As the years add up, health problems start. I agree there are unhealthy thin people but it's usually either from some other bad habit or genetic issue. Being thin (not anorexic thin) is not a health hazard, obesity is.

Midnight_Sunshine

Delicate

Having an obsession in any side of the spectrum is unhealthy.

Telling a fat person to eat less, is like telling an anorexic to eat more, if they are that way mentally inclined. Unhelpful

RoadsterGirlie

I also want to make it very clear to you that fat doesn't mean unhealthy. There are plenty of people who are healthy and overweight. There are also people who are thin and extremely unhealthy.

Fat does mean unhealthy. Even if at this moment in time you have no health issues there are very few obese people who live a long, healthy life. As the years add up, health problems start. I agree there are unhealthy thin people but it's usually either from some other bad habit or genetic issue. Being thin (not anorexic thin) is not a health hazard, obesity is.

Agreed. Eating 4000 calories pure day of junk, whether you are obese or not, is an eating disorder. Most who engage in this type of behavior happen to also be obese.

ldrosophila

That's why I could never watch the Biggest Loser every fiber in my body new it was wrong.

My breakthrough came when I admitted to my self and the world I have an addction. Only then could I let go.

Akimajuktuq

I discovered that my obesity was neither eating disorder (diagnosed with binge eating disorder) nor being lazy. I couldn't stop eating because my body was malnourished. I changed the foods that I eat and increased fat and lowered carbs. Miraculously cured. I'm now losing weight effortlessly. (A healthy body does not store excess fat, but I see some people are offended by that notion.)

I hate shows like the Biggest Loser. It's insulting and it's unhealthy. One of these days someone will die on that show. All for our "entertainment".

melindanew

(A healthy body does not store excess fat, but I see some people are offended by that notion.)

I'm not offended by it, but the statement is simply untrue. You get to have any opinion you want, but you can't make up facts. Nearly every person's body will store excess fat if you overfeed and underexercise it. Some will do so more than others.

You have found a way that works for you to eat at a caloric deficit in a way that makes you feel satisfied, congratulations. This does not mean your body is any more or less healthy than anyone else's simply because of what and how you feed it.

peckish_pomegranate

I also want to make it very clear to you that fat doesn't mean unhealthy. There are plenty of people who are healthy and overweight. There are also people who are thin and extremely unhealthy.

Fat does mean unhealthy. Even if at this moment in time you have no health issues there are very few obese people who live a long, healthy life. As the years add up, health problems start. I agree there are unhealthy thin people but it's usually either from some other bad habit or genetic issue. Being thin (not anorexic thin) is not a health hazard, obesity is.

Agreed. Eating 4000 calories pure day of junk, whether you are obese or not, is an eating disorder. Most who engage in this type of behavior happen to also be obese.

This misconception that all fat people eat 4000 calories a day of junk food is a problem.

Mokey41

4,000 calories of anything is too much. Nobody got fat eating nothing even though it seems to be a popular idea. I live with a very obese husband who swears he doesn't eat much but there's only 2 of us here and someone is eating all the food!

lilpoindexter

I got that thyroid.


I can't wait to see how Alex looks on the biggest loser.

splixi

here is some "food" for thought:

A person with anorexia can be committed/schedualed under the mental health act and held down to be force fed through a tube.

A person severely morbidly obese with possible equal stress on the organs of the body cannot be held and forced to have a lower calorie intake.

Seems this is just another example of endorsing that anorexia is an eating disorder whereas being overweight isn't...our 'choices' no matter what our weight are always going to have mental things influencing them to some degree.....so the extremities in either ARE eating disorders and should be taken equally seriously as the suffering of people from both categories and the impact on their lives is significant!

Many of the people who die from ED's are in fact bulimics who aren't underweight....they just feel so compelled and guilty that their behaviours like sudden starvation/too much purging/laxative abuse- pull the electrolytes so out of whack their heart stops...