{"id":3374,"date":"2007-05-14T05:58:04","date_gmt":"2007-05-14T13:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/05\/14\/eating-disorders-are-about-more-than-hating-your-appearance\/"},"modified":"2007-05-14T05:58:04","modified_gmt":"2007-05-14T13:17:52","slug":"eating-disorders-are-about-more-than-hating-your-appearance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=3374","title":{"rendered":"Eating disorders are about more than hating your appearance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hugo Schwyzer wrote a post <\/a> about veganism and feminism that I found really frustrating. The point he is exploring is an interesting one – as a vegan who once had an eating disorder he is noting the similarities between the two: <\/p>\n

The funny thing is that being strictly vegan (off honey entirely) means that I am more attentive to what I eat than at any time in my life since I was crash dieting fifteen years ago.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But, his perspective is extremely limited as he seems to see eating disorders primarily in terms of body image:<\/p>\n

Back then, I counted calories and fat grams obsessively. Today, I largely ignore fat and calorie information and read to make sure that what I\u2019m eating is entirely plant-based and devoid of hidden dairy or egg traces. (Damn that sneaky caseinate!) I\u2019m once again radically concerned with everything that goes into my mouth \u2014 but for a radically different reason.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Eating disorders are not just about reasons, they’re not just about appearances, they’re often also about morality and control. Hugo doesn’t acknowledge that veganism can feed the food\/control\/morality connection, which is central to an eating disordered mindset. For someone with a tendency to trying to exert control through self-denial of food (which is rarely a small percentage of a female population), any language around veganism which emphasises self-control and morality is going to make things worse. I guess I’ve more experience of this than most; I’ve spent a lot of time in a scene where there are quite a few vegans and lots of young women. I’ve despaired every which way at the policing and limiting which young women do to each other can happen take on a radical hue, and still be just as damaging.<\/p>\n

I don’t know if Hugo has tried to think about veganism in a different way (Stetnor<\/a> suggests one). But I know that a restricted diet doesn’t mean that you have to control what you eat. I realised a couple of years ago that I was severely allergic to dairy products. I have to read the label. There are dairy products in most brands of some really basic products (bread and margarine, for example). If someone offers me food, then I don’t eat it unless I know it’s dairy free.<\/p>\n

I don’t talk about, think about, or experience this as controlling what I eat. I didn’t know that I’d be able to avoid this dangerous thought pattern; I wasn’t even sure I could cut dairy out entirely. I was surprised at how easy as it was. Dairy products are not an option, in the same way foods I don’t like are not an option. Sure I miss them – other people’s cheesy food smells divine, but it’s not self-control that stops me from eating them. Avoiding dairy products is a choice I’ve made.<\/p>\n

I’ve had to be incredibly protective of myself in all this: I’ve corrected people who say I’m not ‘allowed’ something, when people describe dairy products as if they were disgusting I’m likely to sing their praises. In order to maintain this as a choice, I have to avoid anything that sounds like moralism.<\/p>\n

I’m sure it’s much easier for me than people with other food restrictions. My symptoms mean that I have every reason to avoid dairy products. But I don’t actually need the threat. Most of the time I don’t think “Wow that cheese looks yummy, but if I eat it I’ll feel ill and end the night crying on Betsy’s couch about much I hate my life.”* I think “What shall I eat?”<\/p>\n

Even if I experienced every piece of cheese I didn’t eat as a massive battle for control, I’d be very careful never to talk about food and control. As a feminist, in the society I live in, my first goal when talking about food with people I know has to be to avoid reinforcing or triggering eating disordered thought patterns. I can have all sorts of conversations about food, but I need to have them in ways that won’t make other women’s eating disorders worse.<\/p>\n

I think the way Hugo talks about veganism fails that basic test.<\/p>\n

* Then after about half an hour of my whining at her she’d say “Could this be because you ate dairy products?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hugo Schwyzer wrote a post about veganism and feminism that I found really frustrating. The point he is exploring is an interesting one – as a vegan who once had an eating disorder he is noting the similarities between the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminism-sexism-etc","category-gender-and-the-body"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}