# The Invisibility of Eating Disorders



## David Baxter PhD (Sep 19, 2018)

*The Invisibility of Eating Disorders*
By Kacey Clark, _AdiosBarbie.com_
September 18, 2018

 I remember back when I was a freshman in high school, all students  were required to take a health and safety course, which was basically  just fear-mongering around food and weight and exercise with some talk  about safe sex and drug use thrown in. This was honestly not the best  course for me to take less than a year after being discharged from the  hospital for an eating disorder. The entire course was pretty basic and  probably could have been learned by just observing the propaganda from  “health” corporations, but the one thing that really frustrated me was  the courses hyper-focus on BMI.

 We were weighed once a week, for a month; once weighed we would  consult with the BMI charts posted around the classroom. It disturbed me  to see that beneath the underweight category, “athletic” was listed as a  category. This made no sense to me since so many athletes are in medium  to large-sized bodies and carry a significant amount of muscle. Seeing  “athletic” categorized below “underweight” was confusing. Even more  frustrating was the category below “athletic,” which was “anorexic”.  I  looked at the chart and my eyes grew wide as I made this observation. _Were they really trying to diagnose someone as having a mental illness based off of physical criteria?_  Is that really how eating disorders work? I was stunned. Partly because  I knew I was still struggling with an eating disorder, yet here I was,  on the low end of the “healthy” category of the BMI and _far_ from being healthy.

 I use this story as an example of how our healthcare system and  society continue to view eating disorders. The truth is that eating  disorders are mental health conditions. It doesn’t matter what BMI you  are, if you have an unhealthy relationship with food and body image that  interferes with your well-being, you have an eating disorder. It  doesn’t matter what how “healthy” you look, if you starve yourself to  lose weight, you have an eating disorder. It also doesn’t matter what  size you are, if you over-exercise and under-eat or over-exercise and  over-eat or essentially exercise and eat in a way that is supposed to  micromanage how your body looks, then _you have an eating disorder_.

 At its simplest, an eating disorder is a disordered relationships  with food and body image. There’s is no magic number on the scale or  chart that can tell you what’s going on in your head and whether or not  you are in a good state mentally. That’s just not the way mental illness  works. And while mental health can manifest itself in a physical way,  it doesn’t have to.

 I was recently admitted into a partial hospitalization program at an  eating disorder recovery center that would have been completely covered  by my insurance company. However, I first needed a referral from my  health insurance to get the treatment. And of course, I was denied a  referral. First, I needed to go through an intake process that involved  assessing vitals and my physical state. Then, I needed to go through my  health insurance company’s Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP). The same  IOP program I had been through right after I was discharged from the  hospital for my eating disorder.

 I left that program after three weeks. Partly, because I didn’t feel  like I was “sick enough” to be there; I was restoring weight at a good  pace and everyone else was not. I was able to finish my meals and  everyone else was not. When I voiced that I didn’t feel like I needed to  be there, the head of the program trusted me–a person with a mental  illness diagnosis–and agreed to discharge me. While it was not my choice  to begin the program, I was given the choice to leave when I wanted.  So, I left. I felt undeserving to be there and at the same time, I  couldn’t admit I had an eating disorder. It would take at least another  year for me to realize and acknowledge my illness.

 Our healthcare system needs to assess the wellness of ED sufferers  based on their inner turmoil, their thought patterns, their limiting  beliefs–their mental health–not random markers of physical health like  the BMI, how much weight they’ve restored, or how they look physically.  We need a system that assesses recovery from a physical _and _a mental health perspective.

 This stereotype of the white, emaciated female is not the epitome of a  person with an eating disorder. Sure, there are plenty of women who fit  this archetype, and there is nothing wrong with that. _Their struggle is just as valid as anyone else’s._ But  eating disorders are often an invisible illness. They affect people of  every shape, size, race, ethnicity, nationality, gender identity, sexual  orientation, ability, and socioeconomic status, whether we believe it  or not. In order to recognize eating disorders, to treat them, and speak  out about them, we have to look beyond the visible into the dark spaces  that are seldom seen on the surface. In those dark spaces, that’s where  true health and wellness can thrive if given the chance to.


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