Eating Disorders vs. the Collective Focus on Weight and Food

The cultural views of weight and being fat factor heavily in the clinical approach to treating people with eating disorders. Those with anorexia are often lauded for their weight even when the illness severely limits their lives. Fat people are shamed so much they develop body distortions or eating disorders through endless dieting and even Bariatric surgery. Bulimia is sometimes seen as a necessary evil to manage weight. 

The lens through which many people understand eating disorders is itself distorted by the vilification of fat and glorification of thinness. 

In order to make more sense of eating disorders, the distinction between what these illnesses are and the societal distortions about body size and shape is critical. 

Eating disorders are characterized by abnormal eating behaviors: chronic starvation, binging, purging, excessive exercise, laxative abuse. However, the true nature of an eating disorder is psychological. Obsessive thoughts about weight, food and self-loathing dominate the minds of people with eating disorders. These thoughts make it almost impossible to live a full life. Even those who objectively seem to be living talk in secret of how much mental energy they use for the eating disorder. Their lives are not theirs to live. 

Society’s views about weight reinforce much of these eating disorder thoughts. The endless praise for thinness, pervasiveness of dieting and marketing for diets and exercise all confirm that the underlying basis for the eating disorder appears to be valid. It seems as if everyone is focused on weight and food. 

When people hear about or discuss eating disorders, the difference between our collective focus on food and weight doesn’t seem much different from an eating disorder on the surface. 

People without eating disorders may engage in these thoughts and behaviors, but their lives go on. They can let go of these thoughts, stop a diet or exercising and think nothing of it. Someone with an eating disorder cannot make these changes without the illness consuming their lives. 

Changing the obsession with food and weight is not a short-term solution because the obsession is too ingrained in our national ethos. It’s critical to recognize that eating disorders are true illnesses, many levels more severe and all-consuming than simply altering one’s daily diet. Comparing eating disorders and the general focus on food and weight completely misunderstands how severe and destructive eating disorders really are.