Is MFP a breeding gound for eating disorders

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aneary1980
aneary1980 Posts: 461 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Every day there is a least one post from someone who is struggling with their relationship with food.

I know that mfp 'promotes' healthly eating that posts which promote unhealthy eating are banned but the tools that we all use here food diaries, progress charts, congratulating people on loses etc, could also be used as tools for people with eating disorders and it's really sad.
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Replies

  • lewispwest
    lewispwest Posts: 498 Member
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    I'm pretty sure the eating disorders are already inherent in the individual.
  • Poods71
    Poods71 Posts: 502 Member
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    This is true but that can happen anywhere. If they really want congratulations for starvation they only have to go to one of the many pro anna site on the web. If I have someone on my friends page who under eats I will try and point out what they are doing isn't healthy which sometimes results in me being deleted as they don't want to listen. Or sometimes I have to delete them as I can't look at what they are doing to themselves any longer and they won't listen to anyone who tries to offer advice.

    Hopefully most people are using the site the way it should be used but there will always be some who will use it the wrong way sadly.
  • JenniDaisy
    JenniDaisy Posts: 526 Member
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    Every day there is a least one post from someone who is struggling with their relationship with food.

    I know that mfp 'promotes' healthly eating that posts which promote unhealthy eating a banned but the tools that we all use here food diaries, progress charts, congratulating people on loses etc, could also be used as tools for people with eating disorders and it's really sad.

    That's an awful thing to say, being aware of nutrition/calories and logging it does not cause eating disorders. The same way eating everyday doesn't encourage you to become fat.There are a lot of healthy resources here, just because some people uses them to facillitate their ED's does not make it a 'breeding ground for eating disorders'

    Eating disorders are a mental health condition, does watching sad movies cause clinical depression?
  • TestingFun01
    TestingFun01 Posts: 89 Member
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    Agreed to an extent. I believe it would benefit some of them to find an alternative way of recovery, or reaching their weight goals as prescribed by a dietician.

    I see MFP has added links for Eating Disorders, I doubt many make use of it though even despite being told by the users to do so.
  • jenilla1
    jenilla1 Posts: 11,118 Member
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    I don't believe that MFP creates eating disorders. If someone already has one, it might trigger or enable it, but that's not MFP's fault. The features of MFP are helpful to me. Other people's issues are their own. I empathize, but I'm not willing to toss aside all the good that comes from this program just because some people bring their baggage to it.
  • WhoWasGivenToFly
    WhoWasGivenToFly Posts: 64 Member
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    So your solution to how certain individuals us MFP would be??? Sure it can be misused, by an individual who would misuse it.

    I am not seeing the point. Should MFP shut down despite the thousands it does help with these tools?

    If you don't like the way it works then you are free to use something else.:indifferent:
  • aneary1980
    aneary1980 Posts: 461 Member
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    So your solution to how certain individuals us MFP would be??? Sure it can be misused, by an individual who would misuse it.

    I am not seeing the point. Should MFP shut down despite the thousands it does help with these tools?

    If you don't like the way it works then you are free to use something else.:indifferent:

    I don't have a solution or a point really I just think it's really sad.
  • jennifer_417
    jennifer_417 Posts: 12,344 Member
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    Anything that can be used, can be abused. MFP is no exception.
  • fwhittaker
    fwhittaker Posts: 104 Member
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    I see your point. I myself have had to learn to become a bit obsessive about what goes in my mouth and what I choose to eat so I can gain some control and lose the weight I need to.

    Wouldn't take much for someone vulnerable to take it too far. Absolute control of yourself is very addictive for some people.
  • desidieter
    desidieter Posts: 195
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    I wouldn't call it a breeding ground, but it sadly acts as an aggregate. But the same can be true for any other resource. People always find a way to misuse/abuse that which was intended for good.
  • taiyola
    taiyola Posts: 964 Member
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    It helped my recover, so it works both ways.
  • ILiftHeavyAcrylics
    ILiftHeavyAcrylics Posts: 27,732 Member
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    I think it's more likely that the eating disordered seek out MFP to count their calories. It isn't that the site causes them, it's that people who already have them are attracted to the site.

    But I do think that logging food long term can be problematic for some individuals and that those individuals should find other methods for weight loss.
  • WhoWasGivenToFly
    WhoWasGivenToFly Posts: 64 Member
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    So your solution to how certain individuals us MFP would be??? Sure it can be misused, by an individual who would misuse it.

    I am not seeing the point. Should MFP shut down despite the thousands it does help with these tools?

    If you don't like the way it works then you are free to use something else.:indifferent:

    I don't have a solution or a point really I just think it's really sad.
  • immispenguin
    immispenguin Posts: 1 Member
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    Yes, but mainly because people set their goal at the lowest healthy weight and don't feel 'secure' in changing to maintenance calorie intake because we become accustomed to a very low number of calories being 'normal'. Also, weight loss can become very very easy when it's habitual and most people I know in life, including myself, who use this app, have at some point required treatment for eating disorders. Though I do come from a girls grammar school in a wealthy area.
  • WhoWasGivenToFly
    WhoWasGivenToFly Posts: 64 Member
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    Eating disorders are sad, I agree. When I started on this site I didn't pick up on anything that seemed to "promote" me to eat anything less than the what I entered a my daily calorie allowance.

    Agreed, someone could use the site for that, but I don't see how this is "promoted".
  • dammitjanet0161
    dammitjanet0161 Posts: 319 Member
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    Plenty of people would struggle with their relationships with food and restrict etc without MFP. It's been going on for years with or without MFP and always will. I bet you know loads of people in real life who have screwed up relationships with food!

    As others have said, it's a tool and so it can be open to misuse and may be triggering for some people who already have ED tendencies. But I don't think it's a breeding ground for new eating disorders.
  • aneary1980
    aneary1980 Posts: 461 Member
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    Eating disorders are sad, I agree. When I started on this site I didn't pick up on anything that seemed to "promote" me to eat anything less than the what I entered a my daily calorie allowance.

    Agreed, someone could use the site for that, but I don't see how this is "promoted".

    I didn't say that eating disorders are promoted I said that the tools used to lose weight could be used wrongly by people with eating disorders. I actually said that MFP promotes heathly eating, please re-read my post. FYI the only edit was to change an 'a' to an 'are'.
  • mzbek24
    mzbek24 Posts: 436 Member
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    It could be. I saw on a pro ana site something like a list of tips, riddled with harmful misinformation and spelling mistakes, and it looked like it had been written by a teenager. And one of the items was 'Make sure you eat no more than 800 calories per day, that's what supermodels eat' so I think yeah it then follows that someone reading it could potentially use something like this site to try and keep track of cals.
    However, it doesn't mean they are beyond help from this site, can't overcome it with help here. Some may also not truly have gone too far in an eating disorder....it could be an overweight adult, or a young person who was prepared to starve themselves who feels desperate, like they don't know how to do it, nothing seems to work, and they could come here and see those warnings, and interact with others here on the forum (There's quite a lot of info and people advising alternatives to low calorie diets-it is hard to miss) and there are many others who have experience with it to interact with, and for support, too. They might realise it's "Oh hang on-this could be really harmful to me" and not the best way for them to lose weight, and then they start getting more information and set on the right path.
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,268 Member
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    Eating disorders are sad, I agree. When I started on this site I didn't pick up on anything that seemed to "promote" me to eat anything less than the what I entered a my daily calorie allowance.

    Agreed, someone could use the site for that, but I don't see how this is "promoted".

    I didn't say that eating disorders are promoted I said that the tools used to lose weight could be used wrongly by people with eating disorders. I actually said that MFP promotes heathly eating, please re-read my post. FYI the only edit was to change an 'a' to an 'are'.

    You do realize eating disorders were around before MFP and they found ways to do the exact same thing pre MFP right?

    There are lots of places on the internet now where the tools are used to help those who are in the throws of an ED continue down their path...instagram, pintrest, FB (groups) any weight loss site

    pre internet they were more alone perhaps but they still did what they did....
  • msf74
    msf74 Posts: 3,498 Member
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    I think traditional "dieting" in itself is a breeding ground for eating disorders or associated behaviours.

    MFP is no exception although it is far better than most sites.

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