WHAT WE'RE ABOUT
We are constantly redefining our own perspectives, and therefore tend to write a lot about our personal experiences. Many followers and contributors are living with anorexia, bulimia, body dysmorphic disorder, depression, and a variety of other body image disorders or mental illnesses, so please be respectful and remember that health applies differently to everyone. Any and all potentially triggering content will be prefaced with a trigger warning.
RBI supports all races, genders, classes, and sizes. We try our best to make this a safe space for everyone. If we are not doing our job or checking our privilege, we invite you to please inform us.
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We are not health professionals. Any and all advice provided on this blog is supported only by our own research, studies, and personal experiences; nothing more.
This blog is part of the Safe Space Network.
Anorexia nervosa is a serious mental illness. “Obesity” is a made-up medical name for the state of having a fat body. Fatness is not a mental illness.
Fatness is not a serious psychological condition that causes people to damage their bodies in the name of achieving…
[TW: Eating Disorders]
Confession: I used to think the ‘I survived anorexia’ t-shirts for fat people were funny.
Asked iheldtegenstemmer
I wish I knew WHY it was decided that a person must have a BMI under 17.5 to be considered anorexic. If you’re asking me personally - I think it’s complete bullshit. (Also fun fact, you can’t menstruate for three months if you’re female.) Some doctors will still give the diagnosis without these requirements, but most still look for them in ED patients.
Personally, I was diagnosed as EDNOS (Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified) before I was diagnosed as Anorexic due to not falling into the proper weight classification and the fact that I was still menstruating. I was informed of this by my heath care professional at the time.
(TW: DISCUSSION OF THINSPO, EATING DISORDERS,DIET CULTURE)
you see thinspo. you don’t like it. you’ve believed the myth that thinspo is operated by blood sucking demons or people who are just faking it. you make fun of thinspo people. you believe that they oppress fat people. you post gore in the tags or pictures of yourself and others in the tags to rouse eating disorded people of their sin.
stop. consider some things.
- most thinspo blogs and pro-ana blogs are run by eating disordered people on a wide range of weights. 90 to 350. literally. most-to-all eating disordered or heading to one. none of them are faking it. an eating disorder. not a moral grievance. not a sin. got it?
- they are triggered, not helped, by your efforts. your photobombing, your making fun of them on your popular blogs, your bullying of them. none of that is okay.
- sometimes your actions have consequences like relapses, stomach ruptures, self harm, and dead people. not cool.
BUT WHAT DO I DO TO CURE THE PROBLEM
- fight against diet culture. the actual diet culture. not eating disordered people.
- recognize not all eating disordered people are thin.
- do not bully or perpetuate violence against eating disordered people.
- speak up when this happens! your silence is costly. and your place as an ally is shaky if you just stay silent when this happens.
I can agree with 99.9% of this, except when it claims that thinspo doesn’t oppress fat people. When you consider what thinspo is, it is usually pictures of incredibly glamorous thin models (see: VS Angels.) It is usually media based images of how we are “supposed to look.” Women who have binge-eating disorders who see those images who are already struggling with feelings of hopelessness, self-hatred, even suicide are going to feel it even more when they look at thinspo. And if you think that women and men who have binge eating disorders DON’T look at thinspo, you are wrong. I’m not saying that everyone does - but I have know some that do.
The fact of the matter is, thinspo DOES harm fat people because it perpetuates an unrealistic standard of beauty.
I’m not saying that we need to attack eating disordered people, I’m saying that we need to attack the culture that says “you are not enough, you are never enough.”
Today, I taught two group fitness classes in a shirt I accidentally bought a size too small on me. I immediately became horribly self-conscious during the first ten minutes of the first one that my belly would peek out and everyone would vomit from my pouch or something. This lasted through most of the second hour-long class until a point when I realized, I’m supposed to be a leader of health. Health that isn’t dictated by size or shape or a perfect airbrushed set of abs. I am strong enough to get through these classes everyday, I was strong enough to stop my disordered and destructive behaviors, and I will be strong enough to stand up for myself and everyone else like me who can’t stand up for themselves. I have cellulite. I have a grabbable amount of fluff. And I am healthy as fuck.
So, fuck you if you winced at this. Fuck my eating disorder for telling me how unacceptable this is and how I shouldn’t post it. Fuck a society that wants more than I can give. Fuck it.
Asked a-dash-of-ravishing
[TW: eating disorder, anorexia]
I am not a professional and am not equipped to give any advice in these situations, aside from encouraging you to please seek help.
If you are not already seeking regular treatment and therapy for anorexia, I would definitely encourage you to do so as soon as possible, and stick with it as best you can.
When you feel these thoughts start to rush back and start to think of putting weight loss and a desire to see your skeleton through your skin above your health in such an extreme way, that is a massive red flag to me that you are not in a good place.
Please find someone to talk to who can help you navigate your thoughts, feelings and actions. If you need resources for finding help, let me know and I’ll be happy to see what I can do.
Thin acceptance
Because so many people will judge her and assume she has an eating disorder.
In reality, she consumes between 5,000 and 8,000 a day. She probably eats more than most “fat people” any of you will ever meet.
“I eat small portions of crisps, sweets, chocolate, pizza, chicken, cake, doughnuts, ice cream, noodles and pop tarts all day long, so I get pretty upset when people accuse me of being anorexic,”
She’s obviously one of the most “privileged” people in the Western civilization, right?
Thin-privilege does not apply to emaciated bodies that experience some sort of disability or eating disorder that severely impacts their ability to gain weight.
These bodies are not the accepted “norm”, just as fat bodies are not the accepted “norm”. They challenge society’s perceptions of health and do not fit into the accepted “ideal” and therefore face discrimination and oppression in their own way, separate from the way fat bodies are discriminated against.
Really grinds my gears when people resort to fat-shaming. FFS.