The Endless Battle Against Thinness

Many patients talk about eating disorder recovery in the face of our current cultural moment of extreme thinness and are confused.

GLP-1’s, and their descendants hitting the market now and in the next few years, have upended the understanding of acceptable weight loss and thinness. Access to these medications is easy as any over the counter drug, and the price is down to as low as $100 per month. Accordingly, the juxtaposition of eating disorder recovery and weight gain with the idealization of people who lose a vast amount of weight on GLP’s is jarring.

How can these two opposing beliefs be praised at once?

The drive for thinness remains one life achievement which elicits praise and envy from those around us. For many people, nothing feels better than a comment about weight loss from coworkers, friends or family.

In fact, weight loss is still considered a goal worthy of any cost. Concerns about people dosing their own GLP-1, losing weight dangerously or medical effects like passing out or breaking bones are easily outweighed by the panacea of weight loss.

If eating disorder recovery matters in our society, then acceptance and love for people irrespective of their body also needs to be a goal. Recovery means accepting a body that doesn’t achieve the ultimate goal of weight loss and instead prioritizing health and other aspects of life.

When new drugs and industry pressure for profit override our collective well being, we all need to look at the personal and societal risk. Too many people and businesses profit off of our endless desire for weight loss, no matter the risk for poor health results or the increase in and worsening of eating disorders. 

My approach to help people in recovery is to remind them what truly matters. Relationships matter. Doing things with your life that are valuable matters. Love matters. Connection matters. These goals and many others give meaning to our lives in ways that thinness cannot provide. Thinness allows for superficial hope and fleeting contentment followed by the same self-reproach and negative self-thoughts about never being thin enough or looking good enough. Weight loss always ends up feeling empty.

This cycle of weight gain and loss leads to an endless internal swirl of negative feelings and withdrawal from the world. By remembering and maintaining the fortitude to push back against the messaging around thinness, recovery provides an opportunity to forge a life free of the shackles of thinness as life’s ultimate goal.

These medications make it clear that a different value system for success and happiness is far away right now, so we all need to fight back and remember what matters in life—a philosophical change that will also help people recover from eating disorders.