Is MFP a breeding gound for eating disorders
aneary1980
Posts: 461 Member
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.
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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I'm pretty sure the eating disorders are already inherent in the individual.0
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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.0 -
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?0 -
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.0 -
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.0
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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:0 -
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.0 -
Anything that can be used, can be abused. MFP is no exception.0
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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.0 -
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.0
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It helped my recover, so it works both ways.0
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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.0 -
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.0 -
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.0
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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".0 -
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.0 -
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'.0 -
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.0 -
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....0 -
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.0 -
MFP encourages calorie counting which can be abused in many, many ways, not just by encouraging eating disorders... I mean it can be dangerous for uninformed people to build their diets around a preset numeric barrier, because you can still meet your energy requirements while eating unhealthy.
There is a difference between 300 calories of McDonald's fries and 300 calories of let's say.. oatmeal. A difference that some people do not care to know about.0 -
I mean I guess, in a sense, cars create crashes, but I don't really think that means they're particularly evil or sad in a philosophical sense. Other types of crashes would happen if cars didn't exist. The crash is the tragedy, not the mechanism used to create it.
Much in the same way, eating disorders would exist regardless of MFP's existence.
It's a fact that no matter how beneficial an invention might be, mankind will always find a way to use it to hurt themselves or others. My wife used to do registration in an Emergency Room. You'd be amazed at the way some people use curling irons.0 -
NO.0
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It helped my recover, so it works both ways.
Well that's really fabulous then. Enough said :-)0 -
What came first the Chicken or the Egg?0
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Anything that can be used, can be abused. MFP is no exception.
+1, seen people do it another site called spark people.com too.0 -
I think you're wrong. By your logic measuring tapes shouldn't be sold in shops, celery should be banned and bathroom scales are the devil's invention. All of those things can be misused in relation to eating disorders, but don't blame the method for someone else's disordered thinking. MFP helps a lot of people, the few people who use it for ill shouldn't in some way be the representation.0
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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 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.
Some people do use MFP for that purpose, but if they didn't have MFP they'd just use something else instead. Should tall buildings stop being built because someone might jump off? That person would have killed themselves some other way if the building wasn't there.0 -
MFP is a tool, what people do with it is up to them.0 -
Hyperbole much?
It's not a "breeding ground for eating disorders".
The sky is not falling, Chicken Little.0
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