Is Mainstream Society Finally Starting to Understand the Truth About Eating Disorders?
Yesterday I had the privilege of reading the NY Times article, “You Don’t Look Anorexic” and found myself feeling personally and professionally validated. It was as if I was finally seeing a large part of my story reflected back at me. I read stories of colleagues and friends who had understood the deeply painful experience of not being believed, of having eating disorders that were prescribed by doctors, of gym trainers who would give diet advice involving restricting and calorie counting. Stories like this are a daily occurrence in my career and very much part of my own story. I can remember my pediatrician recommending Jenny Craig, water logging and over exercising. By the age of 20 I had lost and gained well over 100lbs, I was restricting, calorie counting, over-exercising, weighing myself daily and tracking the measurement of all my body parts. I was terrified to gain weight, to eat in front of people and most of all my eating disorder was entwined in an abusive relationship where the less I weighed the more “loved” I was.
My eating disorder preyed upon my trauma like a vulture feasting on a carcass. I began to get sick and my PCOS and endometriosis were causing debilitating pain, further conditions that no one could diagnose or believe. The reality is medical trauma and provider gaslighting are such real experiences and yet we never talk about them. When I explain my work to people many make comments like, “A doctor would never do that.” Or “There’s no way an insurance company gets away with that.” And while I can think of 10–15 cases in the last year where an insurance company has said someone was “too fat” for eating disorder treatment or where a doctor has prescribed dangerous medical interventions toting weight loss as a solution.
As I continue to run an eating disorder IOP/PHP and a private practice I continue to hear from big commercial insurances how clients in bigger bodies don’t meet “medical necessity” for treatment based purely on weight or an absence of weight loss without considering the long-term effects of the restriction cycle and the purging cycle when purging isn’t vomiting. We award over-exercising and take self-induced vomiting very seriously and yet both have very serious long-term health ramifications.
As I sit here pondering why I even write these articles or why I care enough to do this I remember when fitting into a size 10 was my biggest goal, when feeling morally superior in my food choices mattered most, when validation for my physical beauty somehow equaled success.
And here is what is missing….why was there only one BIPOC voice and why was Mimi Cole white-washed. A simple quote and nothing more. Why were only white women featured? Why are we not talking about the white supremacy in the eating disorder field? As a white person I was so excited to even see an article published that at first glance it felt like such a big success. And as I read it over, discussed it with more people, spoke with Mimi, I realized my white privilege had clouded my intersectional thinking.
A few days later I was talking with Gloria, Founder and One Woman Show that is Nalgona Positivity Pride. As we chatted I realized this article continues to be a the white washed version of an eating disorder and our field. It becomes so clear to me that any voices of BIPOC or AAPI folxs interviewed were either ignored and left out or supremely edited. The women highlighted deserve credit and respect, my issue is not with them. Why not highlight Disabled bodies, Black bodies, Gender Diverse Bodies? Is it the same white privilege that clouded me? Is the politics around Black and Trans bodies too subversive? We keep accepting crumbs but the change that we need to see is a whole delicious loaf. I struggle to accept this as the beginning of something big. And all I can do is hope the next article highlights the voices we need to see so the Eating Disorder field can finally change.