Unfortunately, the diagnostic criteria set out for specific disorders (excluding EDNOS) are pretty limited, which is sad, since it limits who gets help, and also makes it sort of a sterotype for each disorder..... the truth is many people who don't fit the stereotypes are struggling, and need help.... list the things you can think of....

Anorexics aren't all skeletally thin

Bulimics can be any size

A binge is what it is to that person- if it makes him/her feel they've binged, the calories and quantity don't really matter-- and comparing binges to someone else's isn't productive

Recovery can take months, years, or a lifetime

Those who aren't obviously ill can die from complications of EDs

........next !!

Media ISN'T the main cause of eating disorders in most people! :mad:

ED's are NOT all about food! In most cases they never were to begin with.

How true....for me it was about not feeling worth taking up space on the planet, not control...since the ED was in control, not me.

I think the media feeds young girls minds about what they 'should' look like when they have poor self-worth, but it's the poor self -worth that is the bigger issue.

Media ISN'T the main cause of eating disorders in most people! :mad:


While I agree that this is true, the media doesn't help the situation either. They perpetuate the myth that you have to be skin and bones to have an eating disorder. I can't tell you how many times people have said to me, 'You don't look like you have a eating disorder.'

A binge is what it is to that person- if it makes him/her feel they've binged, the calories and quantity don't really matter-- and comparing binges to someone else's isn't productive

I go through this one with my husband all the time. :rolleyes: I'll often get a stomach ache after eating what he would consider a 'normal' meal. He'll be like, 'How can your stomach hurt? You hardly ate anything!'

I used to get that all the time back in my ED days, especially when out at restaurants with friends....they and the waitresses would make comments, and I'd want to go take more stuff to get rid of what I had eaten. It felt bad to ME...they just made it feel worse. My stomach was used to next to nothing, and 1/4 of a restaurant meal was horrible. It never stayed in.

People don't realize that their comments make things so much harder than it already is.

Also, the comments about looking like I did or didn't have an eating disorder just kept me stuck in the cycle of starving/purging to get to a place where I did look like I was thin enough. It was sick, but it was part of the distorted thinking that went along with the malnutrition. I had lost a lot of weight, but I didn't see it. Others saw it, and those closest to me knew there was a big problem- others saw a normal person who had bags under her eyes, and was so tired that walking a flight of stairs was horrendous. I also had chunks of my heels gone, and my tailbone was erroding. I was in bad shape, but my weight wasn't 'diagnostically significant'....it was significant for overall percentage considering where I started, but not if I'd been normal weight when I started. I'd had all the EDs by then, and was coming down from compulsive eating, so was overweight....I was a mess, and nearly died. Yet I got comments all the time. My body will never be the same.

EDs aren't confined to certain ages.

The diagnostic criteria now in place is not beneficial.

Someone can 'look ok', and be dying inside.