A Conversation on ED Myths

In this weeks episode, Han is joined by Dr Emily Setting. Emily was diagnosed with atypical anorexia in 2019, and is very passionate about debunking the stigmas associated with eating disorders.

We start by talking about Emily's experience, and how she developed an eating disorder in her adult years and how this came about for her. We spoke about her experience of gaining support from the GP, how her BMI didn't mean the criteria for anorexia nervosa, and the impact the comments the GP made on her eating disorder.

Throughout our conversation we come back to stigmas that our community felt need to be demystified in eating disorders, these include:

• EDs only occur in teenage women.

• Everyone with an ED is underweight.

• People with EDs don’t like food.

• People with EDs are attention seeking and selfish.

• Anorexia is the only ED.

• Recovery from an ED doesn’t take a very long time.

• EDs are shameful.

We speak about the role of an eating disorder and what it provides, how this makes recovery so hard, and the grieving process that comes with this. We speak about the addictive nature of eating disorders, and the normalisation of some disordered behaviours.

We speak about diet culture, and how a number of aspects of this have been incorporated into society and the impact of the dieting industry on our insecurities.

We speak about how for those who haven't engaged in eating disorder recovery navigating diet culture can be difficult as a result of a lack of awareness and understanding, and how in recovery you have to fit against all of this. We also speak about how our eating disorders have provided us with the knowledge that diet culture is not conducive or helpful, and how we are able to step away from this throughout recovery.

Please note that this episode discusses a number of eating disorder behaviours that may be triggering for some individuals. Please tread lightly and check in with yourself along the way.