Category Archives: health

Why Do We Find it So Hard to Accept that Our Weight is Not as Within Our Control as We’d Like to Think?

Most of us have grown up in countries preoccupied with weight. We have grown up being told that it is down to us what size we end up at, that we have control over what weight we are, and that it’s about having willpower and making the “right” choices about what we put in our mouths. We’ve been told to count calories, exercise at the gym, resist cake, fill up on fruit and veggies, and even to curb hunger with glasses of water. We’ve been told to ignore hunger, wage war on our bodies, and to trust the information given to us by the media and the weightloss and dieting industry. Even our doctors have gotten on board with the “healthy is only for the slim” message, regardless of evidence to the contrary.

But recently, health at every size and weight set point theory are finally starting to become recognised as fact. Information about our bodies having varying, individual, healthy weights that the body will attempt to stay at regardless of what you eat is at last wedging itself into the media. Information about the fact that you can be fat and be healthy is now getting noticed, rather than being swept under the rug and buried by the pharmaceutical and weight loss industries that benefit hugely from the majority of the population trying to alter the way that their bodies look.

But even though this evidence is coming to light, people still seem to be having a hard time accepting it. By people, I mean healthcare officials and others who get to make the big decisions about what information is given as guidelines for health. By people, I also mean the public. Even though the evidence showing those who are in the “overweight” BMI category are living longer than any other BMI category (yes, including the “normal” category) was so overwhelming that it was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, people are still trying to find reasons to why this could be other than it actually just being the obvious: that it’s healthy to be “overweight”, and that “overweight” is not overweight: that we have to accept this as reality, like we would with any other comprehensive scientific study. Even the medical community keep trying to bury their heads in the sand and subtly hide or erase the information that the (many) studies have given us.

Other studies show that you can be any shape, weight, or size, and be healthy (this becomes less likely with the very morbidly obese and the underweight, but that is not to say that there are not those in both categories that are healthy), and many, many studies show that food and weight is not as correlated as we have been told it is (for more information on weight set point theory go to “Weight Set Point Theory!” under my links section). In fact, it probably doesn’t play much of a part at all, unless you are starving yourself so that your body cannot maintain its weight because of the lack of energy, or you are stuffing yourself to the point of nausea every time you eat so your body cannot cope with the excess energy. The latter is not a common occurrence, except for those with binge eating disorder (which is far less common than you think it is, but that’s a conversation for another time), whereas, unfortunately, the former is – because of the influence the dieting and weight loss industry has had on us, and the prevalence of restrictive eating disorders. The body actually has it’s own system for regulating body weight when you are listening and responding to it properly, not ignoring hunger, and following cues from the body to eat whatever it wants, whenever it wants. If you are in touch with your body and can eat an amount comfortably within your day, then you’re not eating too much, and your body can regulate the energy it is being given so that you still maintain within your healthy weight range that is individual for your body.

So why, even with all the hard facts and evidence, it is so hard for us to accept that a) you can be fat and healthy and b) if you want to be healthy, you have to let your weight be what it is supposed to be naturally?

It’s something that I’ve had to think about, because this is a topic close to my heart and one that helped my recovery from atypical anorexia, and because I’ve come across people on the internet and in my life that have point blank refused to even look at the research showing them that the misinformation that has been drilled into us from our fatphobic, thin-obsessed diet culture isn’t actually reality. It’s frustrating, and it’s sad. I am lucky that most of my friends are at ease around food, and – even though they have their own insecurities about the way that they look – accept their bodies as they are. However, I have a few friends that include those who go on and off diets, desperate to find a way to feel better about their bodies, those who flit between diets and disordered behaviour whilst loathing the skin they live in, and those who battle eating disorders (and before I end up validating the myth that diet culture is a common cause of eating disorders, it’s not, but it sure as hell makes recovering all the more difficult). It’s these people that I feel so sad for, and all the billions of others that are at war with their bodies, that don’t know about – or can’t accept – the fact that their natural, healthy weight is not under their control. And I feel sad for all those who are naturally in the overweight or obese BMI ranges, whose natural, healthy weights are where there bodies are at, but are constantly shamed and abused for those bodies that they are in. And I feel sad for those who have spent their life yo-yo dieting, only to see their weight go up and up and not understand why (side note: it’s because your metabolism slows down during the diet because your body is being starved, and then it stores energy as fat when you go off the diet and so you subsequently gain weight, so you end up back on a diet again, and the cycle continues, rather than letting your body heal and settle back at its natural, healthy weight range). And I feel angry at those who remain wilfully ignorant and keep judging and condemning those who are overweight or obese.

But back to the question: why is it that we find it so hard to accept that maybe body diversity is great, and that people can be healthy at any weight, shape, or size, and that we can’t dictate what our weight is if we want to be healthy and happy?

The first, most obvious reason to me is that we have had misinformation drilled into us for so long. We have grown up being told fat is bad and that we are responsible for saying no to so many of the foods we want to eat, responsible for exercising frequently, and responsible for maintaining a slim body. To then hear such opposing information means that our world turns upside down. Food and weight are such integral parts of our culture and society that to have what we think we know turned on its head is disturbing. It’s confusing. It’s shocking. It means we have to rethink everything about that topic. For some people, that’s just too much, so they refuse to believe it: they reject the new knowledge outright. People don’t like change. It’s scary and it makes people feel uneasy and unstable. It also means that if you accept that we are being lied to, then it makes it hard to know what information to trust, and that makes life a hell of a lot harder.

For some people, making choices about food and maintaining a certain weight through those choices are a form of control. People generally like to be in control. And even though we associate food and control being two parts of an equation that results in an eating disorder, those without eating disorders often engage in what is called “disordered eating”, and that can most definitely include feelings of control. Disordered eating is not a mental illness, but it’s an unhealthy relationship with food (and most probably involves body image issues too). It’s also really, really common because of how obsessed our society has made us with food, and because our diet culture literally encourages it. To be someone who uses food and weight maintenance as a way of feeling in control, and then finding out that you don’t need to have that control and actually to not be controlling about food and weight is the best way to be healthy, is an anxiety-provoking experience. So they reject it.

People also don’t like to have laboured under false hope. Those who feel unsatisfied with their bodies (and who doesn’t after our bodies have been attacked and shamed and ridiculed by the media and the dieting and weight loss industry in order to get us to buy their products) and who have gone on to diet, don’t want to know that their efforts are in vain and that they will not maintain any weight loss, that they will probably end up gaining more weight than the weight they originally lost, and that their dieting and subsequent weight loss and weight fluctuations can actually create health issues including higher risk of developing diseases, and a higher mortality rate. People who feel unhappy in their bodies don’t want to hear that they actually can’t make those changes to their bodies, especially if they want to be healthy. They don’t want to know that they are stuck with the body that they have, even though it has been shown over and over that changing your body doesn’t make you any happier (and again, changing your body isn’t sustainable). To actually learn to accept your body as it is can – sadly – seem like a much bigger challenge than changing it.

In addition, there’s a darker reason why people don’t want to accept the changing of the tides where food and weight is concerned: people who make what are considered “healthy” choices about diet and exercise feel morally superior.

from “How We Eat: Appetite, Culture, and the Psychology of Food” By Leon Rappoport

This makes me feel highly, highly uncomfortable, and it should make you feel the same. What people eat or don’t eat is not a reflection of who they are as a person. It doesn’t make someone a better person if they eat whole foods and abstain from any kind of “junk” food. It doesn’t make someone a worse person if they enjoy burgers and fries. Eating “healthy” doesn’t mean that they have more willpower than someone who chooses to eat “junk” foods. It doesn’t make anyone more superior than anyone else. It doesn’t mean that they are making better life choices. It doesn’t even mean that they are doing the best thing for their body and souls. It doesn’t mean anything except that they are making different choices to someone else. That’s it. That’s all it means. But somehow, it has become ingrained in us that we are morally superior if we make “healthier” choices. And yes, I chose to put that word in quotation marks because I don’t believe that you are necessarily healthier if you only eat “healthy” foods. I also believe that distinguishing “healthy” and “unhealthy” perpetuates a negative relationship with food because it then leads to “good” and “bad”, and there we are, back to morality, guilt, and shame again.

Accepting information that affects us in so many different ways is a really, really tough thing to do. Food and weight is inextricably linked with feelings of superiority and willpower, shame and guilt, with privilege, abuse, money, hatred, insecurity, laziness, greed, power, and sexuality – if not much more. To look at it all anew and recognise how much of it is wrong, and the devastating affect it has had on so many people takes time and patience. It also takes acceptance that those providing us with our health information don’t have our best interests at heart, and that can make some people feel embarrassed for having such blind faith in such a corrupt system.

So I get it. I get that it’s not something that people can just accept at a moment’s notice. But on the other hand you can’t bury your head in the sand and protest blindly against that which is proven fact, however much others try to muddy the water and cloud your judgement. Think for yourself. Educate yourself. Whatever conclusion you come to, make sure you’ve got the information and the knowledge. Don’t just blindly accept whatever you are told as the truth. That is all I ask, for your sake, and the sake of those affected by our obsession with food and thinness…for the sake of everyone. Take control by educating yourself, making the right choices for your physical and mental health, and taking steps towards making peace with your body, as it is.

Food is Not a Moral Issue

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“I’m being naughty today”, the woman in front of me paying for her coffee and brownie says to the cashier. I grit my teeth and bite my tongue. I want to tell her that the word “naughty” does not apply to food. I wanted to tell her that being naughty is doing something wrong, and food is not a matter of right and wrong. I wanted to tell her that food is not a moral issue.

“I’m treating myself today” is another one I hear often when in the queue at coffee shops; the women looking guiltily at the cashier, wanting to justify their hesitant decision to buy a slice of cake. The underlying message is always “I’m disciplined usually! I swear it’s just this one time! I don’t usually eat cake!” And underneath that, is the belief that cake is bad.

How can a food be bad? It doesn’t make sense when you really think about it. Food fits into the category of inanimate objects. They are not alive, and do not possess a personality or a concept of right and wrong. Food cannot be good, and it cannot be bad. Food is food. Food provides energy, and different types of nutrients dependent on the type. Eating one type of food doesn’t make you good, and eating another type of food doesn’t make you bad. It just means that you are eating a food type. Having cake does not have an impact on your morality, and therefore, neither the cake nor you are bad.

Bad, indulgent, naughty, sinful – these are all words to describe a personality or moral status, and yet we – and the advertisements that we watch – use them to describe some of the foods that we eat. Why only certain types of food? Who decided that cake, chocolate, or ice cream was indulgent or sinful? Who came up with the idea that eating a burger is bad? Who suddenly felt that consuming a bag of crisps was naughty?

But what about gluttony? you ask, gluttony is one of the sins. If you are of a certain religion, then you’re right: gluttony is, in some Christian denominations, viewed as a sin. I also want to point out that, according to the Bible, wearing two types of material together is a sin, as is divorce, eating shellfish, and your wife defending your life in a fight by grabbing your attacker’s genitals (no seriously: “If two men, a man and his countryman, are struggling together, and the wife of one comes near to deliver her husband from the hand of the one who is striking him, and puts out her hand and seizes his genitals, then you shall cut off her hand; you shall not show pity.“). We seem to over-exaggerate some “sins” and ignore others entirely to suit our society. Gluttony – derived from the Latin “gluttire” (to gulp down or swallow) – means to over-consume food, drink, or wealth items to the point of extravagance or waste. Note that it is not limited to food and is about the immoral actions of wasting food or wealth that could be given to the needy. Note again how it does not specify certain types of foods and is not related to weight or healthy but rather to greed – having so much that it goes to waste. That does not mean eating a piece of cake because you fancy one. It means buying two cakes, eating to the point of nausea, vomiting so that you can fit in more, eating again, and throwing away the rest. (In this example I want to make it very, very clear that I am not talking about vomiting as an eating disordered behaviour. Vomiting to fit more food in was something that historically was used by wealthy citizens so that they could continue to eat more when extremely full, and I would imagine is linked to how gluttony was historically viewed in its accurate portrayal rather than our ridiculous twisted version of “gluttony” in our diet culture orientated society).

Even when I’m aware of all of this and have a healthy and happy relationship with food, it is still sometimes near impossible to not become sucked into the feeling of shame for buying foods that are considered “bad” in our diet culture, even though I myself do not feel that way. Standing in the queue at a store, chocolate in hand, I have felt anxious that I might be being judged for my choice of purchase. This is heightened by the fact that I am not someone who is super slim, and people are far more likely to judge those who are not super slim for their food choices than those who are. This type of judgement becomes more prominent the bigger the body – which is utterly inappropriate and stems from the incorrect belief that food and weight are intrinsically linked and that those who are bigger should eat less or differently to those who are smaller (check out my section on set point theory under “links” for more information), so I dread to think of the way those without any kind of thin privilege might feel at the prospect of being harshly judged for buying chocolate and the like.

I was talking with a friend recently about how people feel they have to behave in a society like ours in regards to food and exercise. My friend, for your information, is the epitome of the “ideal” woman that our society says we should strive to be: a blonde beauty: very slim but with curves in all the “right” places, but she is not exempt from the multitude of insecurities that our society pushes upon us. You can be the “ideal”, and you are still not ideal enough, and that is how the diet and weight loss industry makes billions of dollars per year, because we are always striving to change our body and make it “better”. She says, “I can be dressing up to go out on a night out, and I will have the same amount of insecurities as someone else [with a completely different body type] – they are just different insecurities about different things.” In our second year of university she was miserable, and on reflection, she now puts a lot of that negativity down to the fact that she was forcing herself to go to the gym and eat salads, just because she felt that was the “right” thing to do. She was restricting her body in the name of being “healthy” and being “good”, when in actuality she was starving her body and subsequently destroying her emotional state at the same time. She has no history with an eating disorder in any shape or form, and even so, our diet culture told her that what she was doing was “right” – something she continued to do for the majority of that year, in spite of both mental and physical effects.

The message our society gives out about food is toxic and damaging. Start trying to repair your relationship with food. It’s okay to eat what you want, when you want. You do not have a moral obligation to eat in a certain way (the same applies to exercise). Don’t label foods as “healthy” and “unhealthy” (read: “good” and “bad”), as this perpetuates a negative and unhealthy relationship with food. Enjoy your food. See it as a wonderful thing that provides for your body, brings people together, and gives you pleasure.

Food is food. Food is not a moral issue.

Why You Need More Calories than the Government Approved Recommended Daily Allowance

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We all know the recommended daily allowance of calories that the government has handed us, but do you know where those amounts originate from? Do you know enough about it to trust that those are your energy needs? Because I’m telling you now, you shouldn’t.

I would recommend reading Gwyneth Olwyn’s ‘MinnieMaud Method and Temperament Based Treatment‘ and ‘I Need How Many Calories?!!‘ for an extensive and in-depth analysis of how the RDA guidelines came about, and why they are so inaccurate – complete with references. However, I understand that, although sound in science and reason, many people do show doubt in Your Eatopia and want more evidence: to which I would say, look up the references! Regardless, I am going to write this shorter article in less detail to illustrate why we all need more than that magic RDA.

The recommended daily allowance set by the government came about by using surveys that relied on self-reporting. This means, in short, that members of the population filled out the survey and the results were averaged out. The actual results were above what the RDA is now:

The FDA wanted consumers to be able to compare the amounts of saturated fat and sodium to the maximum amounts recommended for a day’s intake–the Daily Values. Because the allowable limits would vary according to the number of calories consumed, the FDA needed benchmarks for average calorie consumption, even though calorie requirements vary according to body size and other individual characteristics.

From USDA food consumption surveys of that era, the FDA knew that women typically reported consuming 1,600 to 2,200 calories a day, men 2,000 to 3,000, and children 1,800 to 2,500. But stating ranges on food labels would take up too much space and did not seem particularly helpful. The FDA proposed using a single standard of daily calorie intake–2,350 calories per day, based on USDA survey data. The agency requested public comments on this proposal and on alternative figures: 2,000, 2,300, and 2,400 calories per day.

Despite the observable fact that 2,350 calories per day is below the average requirements for either men or women obtained from doubly labeled water experiments, most of the people who responded to the comments judged the proposed benchmark too high. Nutrition educators worried that it would encourage overconsumption, be irrelevant to women who consume fewer calories, and permit overstatement of acceptable levels of “eat less” nutrients such as saturated fat and sodium. – Marion Nestle (from here)

In short, the results came up as an average of 2,350 calories, and even though that has been shown to not be enough for the average man or woman, they still went and lowered it to 2000. We also know that people under-report what they eat for numerous reasons: not knowing the accurate calorie count of food, missing out liquids and condiments, and reporting what they think they should be eating, rather than what they are eating. Even without mentioning that information on the subject of under-reporting, the NHS has written that the calorie guidelines have been underestimate by 16% due to revaluation of people’s average physical activity, including walking, breathing, and even sleeping.

To put it even more into perspective, the RDA for children aged 5-10 years old is 1800 calories. That’s for small children. When you look at that logically, growing teenagers and fully developed adults are clearly going to need significantly more than that.

Although it does not say what the calorie intake was for either groups, in one interesting study, where they studied the eating of healthy, everyday women, they found that those that were eating in an unrestrained way were eating 410 calories on average more than those who ate in a restrained way, and had a relatively lower weight, which feeds into the relatively well-researched theory that eating less actually can cause you to gain more weight due to a decreased metabolism.

When we talk about teenagers, researchers conducted a study involving more than 200 children between the ages of 8 and 17, and used a lunch buffet to give them access to unlimited food. They found that boys routinely eat more compared to girls of the same age, but the amounts that both parties ate do not fit with the RDA that they are supposed to follow. They found that boys in their mid-teens ate an average of 2,000 calories during the lunch hour, which they thought made most sense due to the age that puberty hits most boys. Their calorie requirements appear to shoot up drastically in late puberty (between the ages of 14 and 17). They found that with prepubescent children, the boys averaged nearly 1,300 lunchtime calories, compared to 900 among girls. Girls consumed the most calories during early- to mid-puberty (between the ages of 10 and 13), as they tend to have their most significant growth spurts during that time. Girls consumed an average of 1,300 lunchtime calories.

A study of teenage girls between 16 and 17, where 204 were dieters, and 226 were not, showed that “the mean reported energy intake of the dieters was 1604 kcals/day compared to 2460 kcals/day amongst non-dieters”, and that “more than twice as many dieters as non-dieters failed to achieve the reference nutrient intake (RNI) for retinol equivalents, thiamin, riboflavin, folates, vitamin B12, vitamin B6, zinc, copper and selenium,” which is obviously not healthy at all and suggests that consuming a low intake results in not being able to get enough of what the body needs, both in energy and in nutrients, because the body requires a much higher level of both. There was a similar study conducted on teenage boys.

Now you might say: yes but these studies show that on average unrestricted eating then leads women to need around 2500 calories on average and men to need 3000. Well, yes, those over 25, whose bodies have stopped growing and developing and so no longer need so much energy, do. But those below 25 still need 3000 and 3500 respectively, as their bodies need additional energy to grow and develop. Do remember here that the two studies above on teenage boys and girls are again, self-reported studies where the unrestricted eaters ate 2460 (females) and 3064 (males) – and as Gwyneth Olwyn points out, under-reporting can range from 2% to 58%, and that “if we average the studies reviewed by JR Hebert and his colleagues, then people eat on average 25% more than they think they do (or report that they do).” Also keep i mind that normal, healthy, energy-balanced people do not know the accurate calories in foods, which is why under-reporting can occur in healthy people, and the healthy intake can then be reported as lower than it is because they are going by what they perceive to be a healthy amount, which is constructed by our society in the form of the daily recommended allowance.

And there we have come full circle.

These intakes (2500 for women under 25, 3000 for women under 25 and men over 25, and 3500 for men under 25) are guidelines but best seen as absolutes during the recovery process due to the nature of the eating disorder and the way it will use grey areas to eat less than needed. If your own individual body requires, as a 30 year old woman, 2300 calories, then a extra few hundred calories will not mean that you gain a significant amount of weight more, if any at all, due to the fact that our bodies are able to get rid of energy by burning it off when it is not an excessive amount more than it needs (which would only be consumed by force feeding when you had reliable hunger cues – this does not include making yourself eat when you have unreliable hunger cues), and when you did eat intuitively when fully recovered, any excess weight would be lost again. Any small increase in weight past set point for a small period of time would be far more desirable than under-eating and remaining both physically and mentally ill.

As a p.s. I just want to put a study in about pregnant women and their energy requirements, as this is sometimes a question I receive on my blog. It reports that “in the normal-BMI group, energy requirements increased negligibly in the first trimester, by 350 kcal/d in the second trimester, and by 500 kcal/d in the third trimester.”

I would also like to refer you to Wikipedia’s list of how many calories on average people consume in each country.

Shouldn’t I Be Recovered By Now?!

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In recovery, it is easy to become impatient with oneself about the time it is taking. We can often find ourselves wondering if it is not time that we are fully recovered already. Human beings seem to be particularly easy to agitate when quick results are not apparent.

However, recovery takes time. And by time, I mean it could take years. It could mean moving forwards bit by bit over a long period of time, overcoming obstacles at a slow but steady rate. It could mean overcoming many obstacles within the first six months but then finding that certain habits and thought patterns are lingering, and taking the next couple of years working on those leftover aspects of your eating disorder. It could mean mentally recovering within a year but physically recovering within three. It could mean physically recovering within a year but mentally recovering within five.

You have to be patient: patient with your body, and patient with your mind. You have to put all of your determination, dedication and perseverance into your recovery and realise that it is going to be exhausting and time-consuming for quite a long time, but the outcome is going to be worth it.

You may think that you are recovering too slowly and that you should be done with it by now, but you have to let the body and mind heal at its own pace. You can’t force yourself into remission. There is so much to work on, and undo, and repair from. Recovery is a delicate process, and it is a journey. Like with all journeys, it’s not just the destination that is important: it’s also what you learn and discover along the way that makes for a robust and stable remission.

After 18 months in recovery, I was pretty stable, but I still had lingering eating disorder thoughts and habits: counting calories, weighing food, a fear of white carbohydrates, unhealthy exercise habits, and an intense dislike of my body. It felt like these things were never going to go away because they were habits that were persisting even though I kept trying over and over again to challenge and overcome them. I felt like I was bashing my head against a brick wall. Then I tried knocking down the brick wall. I tried climbing over it. I tried driving a vehicle into it. I tried to find a way around it. Nothing seemed to be working, and I was giving up with it. I felt like my recovery had come to a dead end, and that I was going to progress no further.

Sometimes in that time period I felt like going back, because I wasn’t going forwards, and I wanted to be moving somewhere. However, I kept at it, and continued developing and growing in front of that brick wall. Then one day, I realised the wall wasn’t there any more. It sounds too good to be true, but that’s honestly what happened. I had been avoiding white pasta and rice, and continuously choosing wholemeal or wholegrain bread over white bread for a really long time, and had also been spending countless occasions forcing myself to eat white carbs when I suddenly realised that I was now eating them without any anxiety whatsoever. I can’t pinpoint when it changed for me. I just one day recognised that I had been eating white carbs without anxiety for a while, and wasn’t trying to avoid them any more.

The same thing happened with the other habits. One by one, they stopped becoming an issue. What once seemed like an impossible task became something that I had faced and overcome. I stopped weighing my food, I learned to use exercise in a healthy way, I accepted my body as it is naturally, and I stopped counting calories. I had tried so hard to force the wall down, but in the end, it came down in its own time, and the effort was in staying facing that wall rather than turning my back on it and walking back the way I had come.

Be gentle and kind and patient with yourself. You are recovering from something that is very complex, and very severe, and it is going to take time. Don’t pressure yourself or set a time limit as to when you think you should be recovered. Allow yourself all the time in the world. That time will help you.

Being Open About Mental Illness

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Mental illness can be a tricky topic for a lot of people. Whether you are the person suffering from a mental health issue or not, the topic can be difficult to talk about.

Most of the time this is due to ignorance. Mental health issues have stigma attached to them. Maybe you have heard someone say that someone with depression just needs to get over it and make an effort to be happy. Maybe you have heard someone tell someone with anxiety to “stop being a pussy” or to “man up” or to “get a grip”. Maybe you have heard that eating disorders are self-inflicted, or that someone with schizophrenia is a “psycho”. Maybe you have found yourself being the one that has said these things. This is due to the misunderstanding surrounding mental health problems: they are never a choice, and it does not mean that you are “crazy”.

Mental health problems are not something to be ashamed about, nor are they something that you should make someone else feel ashamed about. Mental health issues and illnesses are real, and they are extremely difficult to deal with, and often debilitating. 1 in 4 people will experience some mental health issue in the course of a year and 1 in 6 experiences this at any given time (The Office for National Statistics Psychiatric Morbidity report, 2001) . Mixed anxiety and depression is the most common mental disorder in Britain, and depression affects 1 in 5 older people. British men are three times as likely to die by suicide than British women, and self-harm statistics for the UK show one of the highest rates in Europe: 400 per 100,000 population. (source) (more statistics for Britain here). That means that a hell of a lot of us suffer from mental health issues/illnesses. It means that even if you do not suffer from any mental health issues/illnesses yourself, then you will know someone who does.

Some people seem to believe that if you are open about a mental illness or disorder, then you are looking for sympathy, shock, or pity. This is an absurd opinion. I am, and have always been, very open in the fact that I have/have had an eating disorder, but I do not want anyone to feel sorry for me. Thanks, but no thanks. Some people think that you are attention seeking or trying to provoke a reaction. This may be true, but not in the way they perceive it to be. People with mental health difficulties are suffering, and sometimes their illness can be a way of coping, or a way of expressing to the world that they are in pain (think eating disorders and self harm). Not always, but sometimes, this is the only way they can communicate how they are feeling with the outside world. Next time you think someone is looking for attention, it might be the kindest thing to do to give them some, and show them that you care.

People with depression, anxiety, eating disorders, bi-polar, borderline personality disorder, OCD, psychosis, schizophrenia, or any other type of mental illness should not have to hide part of themselves for fear of seeming like an “attention seeker”, or labelled in any other negative way. They should not have to feel ashamed of an issue that they have the strength to deal with every day. Dealing with mental health issues does not make a person weak. In fact, it is often mental health issues that reveal the immense courage and bravery of a person.

Just because you suffer with a mental health problem should not mean that you automatically hide that part of your life and be made to feel uncomfortable expressing the things you have to overcome in your daily life. When people have a bad day, or they break up with their boyfriends, or have a huge fight with their parents/siblings/friend/partner, they are able to express their feelings of hurt and anger without fear of being judged. However, when someone with a mental health problem has a bad day due to their condition, a overwhelming amount of the time they feel like they are unable to openly admit about their bad day purely because it was down to a mental health problem. It is important to be able to vent and communicate when you are having a hard time, so please make sure to open up to the people around you that you trust and are comfortable with, and if you are that person who someone opens up to, be sensitive and responsive and mature about the situation. Talk to them, support them, and encourage them to seek help from a professional if they are feeling overwhelmed.

Some people find my rather blunt way of stating my problems and talking about them matter-of-factly without appearing awkward or breaking down into a pool of tears quite unusual, but I am fortunate in that I have never felt inclined to hide who I am and what my day consists of just because some of it used to be down to an eating disorder that I suffered with, or anxiety, or a bout of depression. I will not edit out part of my life simply because the way society is has caused a lot of people to feel uncomfortable when the subject is brought up. They may feel uneasy talking about it, but I spent years living with it every minute of my life. We all have problems, and we should all be able to express them as much as the next person.

If you have a mental health issue, be open about it if you can. Communication is key in relationships, and it is key to getting help with whatever it is that you are struggling with. If you don’t have a mental health issue, be aware that others around you do. Be receptive. Be kind. Do some research to further your understanding. The world will be a better place once we eliminate the stigma surrounding mental health issues and illnesses.

What Being Healthy Really Means

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About a year or so into my recovery, I went to the hairdressers. When I sat down for a haircut, my (very awesome, around-the-same-age-as-me) hairdresser said, “You’re looking healthy!”

It took me a while to register that what she had said was a compliment. The eating disorder lodged in my brain saw an opportunity and cried out “Healthy?! Healthy?!What she really means is fatter.”

The above image is me before and during recovery from atypical anorexia. I didn’t even realise that there was a difference in the way I looked then and now bar that I had gained weight until I was at a friend’s house over Easter and on her wall were two photographs that included me: one at a healthy weight and one when I was underweight. I was in shock. I never realised how pale and sick I looked.

My hairdresser had been cutting my hair in Manchester since my first year at university. She saw my drop weight to my lowest, and she saw me restore it again. That’s how I know that her compliment was so sincere.

One thing that I’ve noticed since being in recovery is that even though sometimes I am unable to act on my own opinions, those opinions about food and weight and body shape have become so healthy that they’ve moved way over to the other side, as far away from disordered as possible, and past even most “normal” people’s views. My views have become so healthy that when I am having coffee with my friends at Starbucks, and one of them says “Oooh, do you think I should get a cake with my coffee? It’s kinda a lot of calories…” I look at her disapprovingly and say “Of course! If you want it, you eat it! Stop asking me for validation, that chocolate cake looks so damn good that you should get TWO SLICES.” Another of my friends said that she had eaten loads that day but “haha it was okay” because she would just work out for double the amount of time. To which I shouted “No, no you will not! Our bodies are not mathematical machines that have specific countable amounts going in and our like our diet culture would have us believe. You do not have to double your work out just because you over ate for one day. GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK!”

Having an eating disorder and trying to recover from it has ruined a lot of my life and had me existing in constant misery. What it has done for me though is introduced me to blogs like Fyoured, TheFuckItDiet, and Youreatopia , which opened my eyes to the actual truth rather than the lies that our money-grabbing, body-shaming diet culture would have us believe (I suggest that you check them out). I began to learn that being healthy means making the right choices for you and your body. It means going swimming if you genuinely love going swimming (but not before being in remission, or nearing it). It means having a second helping at dinner if you still want more. It means playing badminton with your best friend if that is what makes you smile. It means sitting down with a friend to watch a movie and sharing a whole tub of ice cream if that is one of your favourite foods. It means eating whole foods if that makes you feel great. It means spending the day in your pjs in bed blogging and watching TV when you want to relax. Being healthy means doing with your body what makes you happy. Genuinely happy. Without that eating disorder voice having any say.

In addition, exercise doesn’t have to be exhausting, or stressful. You don’t have to dread it. In fact you can exercise without even having to take much notice of it, and that’s the way that it should be done. Exercise should not ever be about changing your body. What it should be about is genuine enjoyment. In fact, I have talked about this topic extensively on my YouTube channel (Here, here, and here are my videos on exercise in recovery, and exercise in remission). It does not mean you have to spend gruelling hours at the gym or engaging in high intensity aerobics, gasping for air in your living room. It can mean taking a walk in the countryside with your dog/friend/camera. It can mean splashing around with your mates in the pool. It can mean getting competitive and enjoying a game of badminton in the sun. It can mean getting on the trampoline with your siblings. It can mean walking in the fresh air to town to do your shopping rather than catching the bus. It’s about what works for you.

Health is eating the right foods for you and nourishing your body and your soul. It’s about eating whatever you want, whenever you want. It’s about trusting your body and it’s cravings; whether it is calling for doughnuts or broccoli, you should respond to it. Being healthy is being happy, and the happier you are the more it will shine through your skin and your eyes and in the way you hold yourself. Knowing that is how I overruled the voice of my eating disorder when my hairdresser complimented me with those words: the knowledge that I was shining the most I had done for going on two years.

Me and MinnieMaud: My Take on Recovery

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The MinnieMaud Method is pretty popular right now with those in recovery from eating disorders. It’s also causing a bit of controversy over on the blogging site Tumblr. You may already be acquainted with MinnieMaud (abbreviated to MM). You may already be following it. You may have your doubts about it. You may be hearing its name for the first time. Whichever of those you identify with, here’s a fact about me: I am someone who has reached remission by loosely following the MM Guidelines.

Now there are a certain few people who make all kinds of presumptions about you when you mention that you used MM to recover. I’m not sure why but they assume to know about your personal beliefs, how you feel about the creator of the MinnieMaud Guidelines (Gwyneth Olwyn), and what views you hold, amongst other things. But enough of them. Here are my honest thoughts about MinnieMaud, Your Eatopia, and Gwyneth Olwyn.

As I said above, I loosely followed the MM Guidelines. I used them as just that: guidelines. I weighed myself for a long time, even though the guidelines warn you not to, before I realised that – surprise surprise – this did not help me in any way and was actually hindering my recovery. I realised that aspect of the guidelines was totally correct, and so one day I just stopped, and I’ve never weighed myself since.

I exercised on and off and on and off, because I found it too hard to do what I really should have done and stopped exercising full stop for a long time. I would listen to the guidelines and give up exercise for a few months, before trying to incorporate it back into my life in a healthy way. It never worked, and I would fall down the rabbit hole of exercise addiction, only to have to drag myself back out of it again (so I really advise you to follow that guideline – seriously, just do it). It was only in remission that I was able to have a healthy grasp on being active and not sinking into a relapse with it. However, I can tell you that it requires being super vigilant at all times, not to mention being really, truly honest with myself (which is of utmost importance in both recovery and remission).

I never followed the calorie guidelines exactly, as my hunger cues were always reliable. I had extreme hunger, as expected, and then my appetite tapered down. Sometimes I was eating 2,500 calories. Sometimes I was eating 4,000 calories. I listened to my body, and it worked. Eventually, after two years, I ended up in remission, eating an average of around 2800 calories a day. I was lucky when it came to hunger cues. Lots and lots of people do not have reliable or accurate hunger cues. This is why it is dangerous to not eat the minimums militantly for quite a while. I took a risk. I probably shouldn’t have, because if I had done that with unreliable hunger cues, I would probably have ended up in relapse, or significantly slowed my recovery down. The reason things are black and white in recovery with the MM Guidelines, is because if you let there be a grey area, your eating disorder will be all over that. The grey area is where the eating disorder will sneak it, and start to alter the rules and play its own game. People need black and white to fight their eating disorder. It is in remission that you can look back at this and understand why. I’m not trying to patronise anyone that is not recovered by saying this, but things really are much clearer from the other side. Just trust me on that one.

As for the creator of Your Eatopia, I do not think that Gwyneth is a “god”, which followers of MM sometimes get accused of. I think Gwyneth is a wonderful, knowledgeable, dedicated, hard-working, empathetic but firm, patient person. That does not mean that I think she is perfect. I do not agree with everything that she writes on Your Eatopia. I do not believe all of her information is flawless and supportive of her arguments. I do not believe that everything she states is fact. The thing is, science changes, all of the time. We come across new information that points in all different directions to what we first believed. However, all we can go on is what we know now, and readjust our beliefs when we learn new information. Not all of the detail within Gwyneth ‘s arguments is conclusive evidence to her arguments. I can’t say that all of the science behind her writings support her. I can’t say that because I have not read all of the studies – I just don’t have time to do so, and I’m sure some of them can be interpreted in different ways. What is important to me is that overall, her points are logical. The big picture makes sense: Extreme hunger is absolutely a thing. I am 110% sure of that. We absolutely require far more energy than the government-approved guidelines, and those energy requirements are around minimums. Through Gwyneth’s articles I also learned about a lot of less disputed things about recovery that I would never have learned about had I not come across Your Eatopia, such as the various digestive issues, refeeding syndrome (extremely important), edema, exhaustion, aches and pains, the different stages of recovery, and why exercise is bad in recovery (kinda should have been obvious but you know, eating disorder denial). I also learned about health at every size, ortherexia, diet culture, the genetic link to eating disorders, weight set point theory, anorexia athletica, and the misdiagnosis of BED (do I believe BED exists? Yes. Do I think that many people get misdiagnosed with BED during recovery from a restrictive eating disorder because they are experiencing extreme hunger? Yes. I began to understand that food isn’t my enemy, and neither is my body.

Not only is the site itself so informative and has helped me understand so much about my eating disorder and myself, but it offers the forums. I can’t explain how much support I received from members there when I was anxious and in doubt. Ultimately, it was up to me to change my behaviours and thought patterns, but the support that was offered to me when I was scared and had nowhere else to talk about these issues was invaluable. The Your Eatopia blog provided me with information, and the forums provided me with emotional support, helpful advice, and lots and lots of love. I have not received so much warmth and sincerity anywhere else on the internet.

Still, I had questions about some of the things Gwyneth had written about in her articles, so I took it upon myself to email Gwyneth directly. Quite a few times. I remember writing those emails, and I can recall my anxiety and doubt as I typed out my questions to her. She always responded; always took the time to converse with me about the topics that I brought up. Sometimes I still have questions for her, and she still always replies to me. Do I fully agree with everything that she writes back to me? No, not always, but she gives me something to think about; something to work with, every single time. I can also say that going over old emails and looking at them now from a healthier place, I can see how much my eating disorder fuelled my fears. I could not see it then, and no one could have made me see it. You can only really see that stuff when you look back at it. However, it was Gwyneth that pointed me in the right direction, and I got there in the end.

I absolutely believe in health at every size. I believe the body has a natural, health weight at which it settles and maintains whilst you are eating unrestrictedly. Our bodies come in all shapes, weights, and sizes. We are a species of variety. So I do not think it is ever okay for anyone, professional or otherwise, to set a goal weight for those in recovery from a restrictive eating disorder, especially when that goal weight is usually a minimally “healthy” BMI, or just above. As I said, our bodies are all different, and whilst some people may be healthy at a BMI of 19 or 20, most people will still be underweight, maybe severely so, for their own individual bodies.

I also firmly believe that doctors are not always right, especially when it comes to mental health issues, and specifically when it comes to eating disorders. Eating disorders are highly complex, commonly misunderstood, and very individual mental illnesses. There is not much known about eating disorder recovery: what works, what doesn’t work, and unfortunately not much research on the subject. The success rate for full eating disorder recovery is much lower than you would hope. Doctors and others do not have a lot to go on but their own personal experiences (limited), what they have been told (also limited, as mentioned above), and both of the former are tainted by the society we live in, which has been indoctrinated by diet culture. Whilst doctors are to be listened to, when it comes to eating disorders, what they say should not always be taken as fact. Listen to what they say. Research it. Make informed decisions about your mental and physical recovery. Most importantly, do what you feel is right for you (for you, not your eating disorder).

MinnieMaud is not the only method that advocates these calorie amounts in recovery. It is not the only method that calls for the cessation of exercise during recovery. It is not the only method that realises that the body will need a vast amount of calories to repair the body after intense starvation. It is not the only method that disagrees with the notion that once at a minimally “healthy” BMI, you should stop gaining weight and maintain. There are many recovery methods used in inpatient settings, by therapists, by doctors, and by other professionals that do not have a specific name, but have similar ideas about what is needed for recovery. There are also many who don’t, but MinnieMaud is not the only method to use these types of guidelines by far.

I am open to discussion. I am not militant when it comes to MM. I am very aware of the fact that new research is being done all of the time on many, many topics that is related to eating disorders, eating disorder recovery, and food/weight/dieting/bodies in general. I don’t know the ins and outs of every single thing to do with those topics, but I’m getting the overall picture, and I think I’m getting it right.

Do I believe the MinnieMaud Guidelines are a good method for recovery? Absolutely. Do I advise following them? Absolutely. Your Eatopia helped me to save my life. I don’t think I could have reached remission without it.

That is my stance on MinnieMaud, and about recovery. It is my stance on Gwyneth Olwyn, and Your Eatopia. It is my stance on doctors, and the aspects of recovery from a restrictive eating disorder. I probably could say more, but for now, I will leave it at that.

Eating Disorders: My Battle with Myself, and my Journey into Remission

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This article contains highly triggering content as it discussing eating disorder habits and thoughts. Please proceed with the utmost of care, or do not proceed at all.

I’ve had an eating disorder for a long time. It started when I was thirteen, and I am now twenty three. I have had two major episodes with it: between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, and between the ages of twenty and twenty-one. In between those times, I lived my life being “sort of okay” when it came to food and exercise and my body. I had wobbles, and blips ,and things were not good, but I was also able to live a functional life.

My worst of the two major episodes was the latter. At my sickest I experienced nausea, dizziness, insomnia, dissociation, depression, weakness, fatigue, and anxiety. In addition, I bruised incredibly easily – working out on the floor for a total of two minutes resulted in every nodule on my spine was bruised. It would take me four hours to watch a two-hour movie because I could not concentrate on anything longer than ten to fifteen minutes, and so would pause the movie over and over again to busy myself with something else. I was described as “glassy-eyed”, and my personality vanished: I was not interested in anything except losing weight.

Eating so little affected my mood dramatically: I was angry, all of the time, and became emotionally distant and cold from my partner, and would not give or receive affection. I could feel the love for him burning strong inside me, but it was as if it was encased in ice: I could not express it through words or actions, and I cannot imagine how painful that time was for him.

I was afraid to go to anyone else’s house because I was scared that I would be tempted by food, and food shopping terrified me. I became suicidal, and was cutting up my body on a regular basis.

My relationship fell apart. My friends said I was distant and I never really felt present in reality. I could not focus on a conversation because I was looking at my thighs, arms, or stomach, trying to find a position to sit in which I didn’t look “huge”, or I just could not concentrate, and was worrying that I might just pass out at any moment. My mum told me that my dad had expressed a fear of me killing myself through starvation.

At the beginning, sleep used to be an escape, but as I got sicker and sicker, I began to have nightmares about binging or gaining weight. That is when I could sleep: I developed insomnia, and spent hours at night going over my meal plan for the next day in my head. I would wake up stroking my hip-bones.

Every time I showered, an abnormally large amount of hair would fall out, and as a result it thinned. It also became limp and dead. After I went into recovery, I had to have a fair amount chopped off, and now use four separate treatments to try and repair the damage.
I don’t have many memories of that time really, due to my brain cells dying, and the memories I do have are dull. Some are black and white. That’s what it felt like; no colour in the world at all. I existed, I did not live. In fact, I was slowly killing myself. I constantly switched between feeling nothing and feeling inconsolably miserable.

I was constantly exercising. Nearing the end of the worst year with anorexia, I experienced a “binge” period of three-four weeks, where my body went into survival mode and finally took over my brain; doing what it needed to do to keep me alive and locking me into a trance where I would consume a large amount of highly calorific food in one go without having any control over it, or really being aware that I was doing so. That completely terrified me, and so to combat the “binging” I began purging (self-induced vomiting), and would exercise for hours and hours on end after I had “awoken” from my dream-like state, to compensate for the food intake. This meant either repeating my high-intensity aerobics video over and over again, or walking up and down the streets of Manchester for two to three hours. If I ate far more than I wanted to, I would fast the next day. Once, the blood vessels around my eyelids all burst because of a violent purge.

All the while, I believed I was grossly fat and completely worthless. I believed that there was no way out of my misery except death.

I am now in remission after over two years in recovery.

The journey has been hard. At first I began eating but substituted one bad habit for another: I became even more obsessed with exercising and my life centred around it for five months. I would feel incredibly anxious until I had done my daily work out, and would only experience mild relief when it was completed because I almost immediately started to dread the next day when I would have to do it all over again. Every day was always organised around working out, and it took up so much time that I missed out on most social events. I gained weight, but became preoccupied with getting very toned. I also became fixated on nutrition, and “clean eating”. My calorie intake increased dramatically, but I would only eat “safe” foods and became very anxious if I ate something that I deemed unsafe or unhealthy. All I had done was exchange one obsession for another, and although now my body was substantially healthier, my mind was far from it.

Recovery was also hard on my body. As it was not used to digesting a normal amount of food, or anything other than soup, vegetables, fruit, and a bit of bread, my digestive system was not in prime condition. When I began to eat more normally again, it was kick-started and as it tried to adjust to my increased intake and variety of food, I was left with abdominal pain and bloating, gas (and believe me, I never thought I was going to stop farting – I was waking myself up in my sleep for weeks!), and night sweats, brought on by what is called hypermetabolism, which is the increased rate of metabolic activity (more on it here). The night sweats were so severe that I was waking up in the middle of the night and having to change my sheets because they were soaked through. This went on for about two weeks, and I had no idea what was wrong with me until I came across it on an amazing recovery blog Fyoured. In fact, this blog, run by a beautiful, highly intelligent, well-informed, knowledgeable girl called Kate, changed my outlook on food, weight, and body image completely, especially where my exercise and “clean eating” was concerned. Whether you are eating disordered or not, I highly recommend taking a look at this blog, as everyone, everywhere could benefit from her unbelievably positive and healthy outlook on eating and our bodies.

Eating more had healed most of my physical problems which included concentration, memory, mood, and the other issues I listed at the beginning of this article, and this vastly improved my relationship again, which was wonderful. Sadly though, it ended mid-November (because of issues unrelated to my eating disorder). This, understandably, destroyed me, and left me with no motivation to do anything for weeks on end. This included my motivation for working out.

Not exercising for a number of weeks managed to break the addictive cycle that I was in. I realised that not exercising did not mean that I gained a ton of weight, which had always been my fear. In fact, I gained nothing at all. Putting aside the fact that my serious, long-term relationship had just ended, not exercising made me less stressed, less anxious, and helped me to enjoy each day more and use it to do the things that I wanted to do, not the things that my eating disorder wanted me to do.

Don’t get me wrong, every day was still a struggle, and I did relapse for a few days now and again.
Every day I still battled overwhelmingly negative thoughts about my body, and when I came across images of me at my low weight I found myself very triggered. But things started to get gradually better and better.

I had also come across Your Eatopia, which I found though Fyoured. Both advocate an entirely unrestricted approach to food. All food is good food. Nothing should be restricted from your diet. Eat whatever you want, whenever you want. Don’t exercise in recovery, and if you want to be active in remission, make sure it is because you enjoy the activity you are involved in and that it is recreational and not to do with altering your body. Suddenly I felt overwhelmingly relieved: everything I thought I had to do, but didn’t actually want to do (gruelling exercise routines, eating super “healthy” foods and restricting yummy foods), suddenly became things I could stop doing.

I started developing a healthier relationship with food, and with bodies in general. I stopped seeing food as the enemy, and I started realising that people could be healthy at all different weights. I started really listening to my body and its cravings and I responded to them all. I started working on my issues with exercise (which I kept relapsing with as I tried to incorporate it into my life over and over again, and kept getting sucked down the rabbit whole of compulsive exercise). And yes, I gained weight. I very, very steadily gained weight for just under two years. Of course, gaining weight continuously for such a long time was very, very hard. I thought it would never stop, and I did battle thoughts of relapse quite a few times. I had breakdowns and sobbed down the phone to my mother. I spent a week in relapse when I accidentally read an email my father had sent someone else telling them that I was now “clearly overweight” (I’m probably “technically” overweight by a few pounds) and that I had an attractive figure at a lower weight, and more ignorant and wrong assumptions that I’m not going to go into detail with. I looked up tips on eating “healthy” and losing weight by eating lower calorie meals. I threw my toys out of the pram and said I AM NOT DOING THIS ANY MORE I CANNOT COPE. But I kept on going anyway, because going back was never really an option.

I now believe that I am weight stable, judging by the fact that jeans I bought six months ago still fit (woop woop).

Making the decision to recover was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. People don’t understand this, because they think that if you are sick, you must want to get better. What they fail to see is that part of the eating disorder is wanting the eating disorder, whilst hating it at the same time. Your sickness becomes part of your identity.

But now, over two years on, I am in remission. I think food is amazing. I eat whatever I want, whenever I want. I am healthy and free and I am now able to live an active life without it taking over. It does mean that I have to be really, really vigilant, 100% of the time because of this choice, but it means I enjoy recreational activity for fun rather than forcing myself to exercise in a way that is purely to alter my body and no fun at all. I don’t love my body. I don’t even like it. But I accept it, and that’s the thing about being in remission: there are far more important things to focus your time on. When I look in the mirror and I don’t like what I see, it does affect me, but then I get on with something else. I spend my time doing what I am passionate about, not punishing my body for not looking exactly the way I want it too. Okay, so my stomach creates rolls when I bend over. My thighs rub together when I walk. My stomach isn’t perfectly flat and there’s fat on my hips. I’m not super happy about that, but I sleep well at night, and I eat delicious things every day and have a great time doing so. I socialise with my friends over cake and coffee without even thinking about it. I host tea parties where we all bake and cook and eat lots and laugh. I have the energy to run around the badminton court, yelling “OHHHHH YOU BITCH!” when my friend wins like, every time. I have a massive personality with loads of passions and hobbies and interests, instead of being a walking eating disorders. I spend a lot of my time helping other people in recovery and am soon to be starting a job as a therapeutic care worker at my local eating disorders inpatient residential home. I can concentrate on conversations and books and movies. I can experience life with sharp senses and a sharp mind. The world is now in colour.

Eating disorders are NOT a trend, lifestyle choice, or phase. They are life-threatening mental illnesses that need to be treated seriously. There is no quick fix, no simple solution, and unfortunately, no cure. Eating disorders are for life: it is whether you let the eating disorder control you or whether you decide to fight to have control over the eating disorder that can make the difference between life and death, misery and happiness. I know that I am living with a chronic illness and that I will always have to wary. I will have to be vigilant and make sure that I am 110% honest with myself. Always. But I never thought that remission was possible for me, and here I am, living life to the full. Recovery is hard. Really, really hard. But it is a journey that everyone can take, and remission is a destination that everyone can reach. You have to keep fighting the battles, over and over, and eventually, you will win the war.

Please also bear in mind that only 15% of people with eating disorders are underweight. There is no such thing as “too fat to have an eating disorder”. In addition, BMI is not an accurate measure of “healthy” or “unhealthy”. Everyone’s bodies are different, and some deteriorate faster than others, making them extremely sick even if they are not classified as severely underweight. Also be aware that anorexia nervosa is also not the only severe restrictive eating disorder. Bulimia nervosa, EDNOS, anorexia athletica, ortherexia nervosa, and ARFID, are all also serious, life-threatening restrictive eating disorders.

The Dangers of Addiction: Compulsive Exercise