The Cutprice Guignol

So, I’ve written a little about eating disorder social media (and my use of it) before, but in the last few years, I’ve seen the rise of a new side to ED content on social media, and that’s the eating disorder recovery account.

If you’ve been in the eating disorder space online for any length of time, chances are you’ve come across a few of these in your time: accounts that purport to document someone’s journey into eating disorder recovery, sometimes to provide accountability, sometimes inspiration, but always almost laser-focused on leaving behind the clutches of their eating disorder for good. Not accounts that happen to post about eating disorder recovery (I mean, hi, hello) but accounts that are created specifically for the purpose of documenting them.

And that seems like it would be a positive thing, right? Eating disorders are the most deadly mental illness out there, and anything that encourages recovery from them has to be helpful – any account that purports to capture the reality of that recovery is surely going to make the right kind of change to the social media landscape, however small.

And, to an extent, I think there is positivity to be found for some people in these accounts. Eating disorders are incredibly isolating illnesses, and there is some relief in knowing that other people have or are struggling the same way you are.

But beneath it all, I have some serious doubts about these accounts, for a number of reasons, and I know I’m not the only eating disordered person who does. I’ve seen the tide slowly start to shift against these kind of accounts in the last year or so, as people begin to identify them as something other than the apparent positivity they’re trying to put out there.

Firstly, and probably most importantly, I have found that a lot of these accounts inevitably feed into the competitive nature of eating disorders. Whether it’s the level of sickness or thinness the sufferer was at when they were at their worst (most often depicted in pictures that pass for thinspo in any other context, of course) or the amount of weight gained (or not gained), or the amount of food eaten (or not eaten), it offers a point of competitive reference for both the creator and the followers. If you’ve not been eating disordered, it’s hard to imagine that these things could be a matter of competition – it’s almost a dog-whistle to people with eating disorders, the kind of thing that, from the outside, looks like an inspirational depiction of how bad things can get, but, for those who know, it’s a data point to compare yourself against.

While I generally want to give people the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their intentions, it’s hard to believe that any person afflicted with an eating disorder wouldn’t recognise the potential for this content to be used as something to measure up against by others in a similar place, even if it is draped in the veil of recovery.

And in a more long-term sense, building a social media presence – and, more importantly, a brand and career – around eating disorder recovery means that you’re going to wind up with a major aspect of your life tied to your eating disorder. So much of these disorders revolve around obsession, around the space these illnesses take up in our brains, and these accounts carve out a piece of that headspace and set it aside for the eating disorder to remain as long as you continue to use it. If you recover from your eating disorder completely – which is to say, are able to put it behind you and move on to the rest of your life without obsessing over food, exercise, or a particular state of sickness you once reached – you have no more content. Continuing to struggle is incentivized, and that’s a profoundly dangerous space to find yourself in.

For me, true eating disorder recovery has looked like setting aside the enormity of the space this illness took up in my mind and making way for other things, for a life that isn’t bogged down by a disorder. That’s going to be different for everyone, and I respect that, but when I see these eating disorder recovery accounts spending years documenting the ups and downs of their recovery, I can’t help but wonder – without this dedicated and highly-incentivized space to continue talking about their disorder, would recovery have been easier for them? Would it have been quicker?

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments – please let me know your opinions on these accounts, or if you’ve run one yourself and have found it useful or harmful to your recovery.

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