Yes, you can be fat and have a restrictive eating disorder

“Eating disorders can affect anyone of any shape or size.”
“Eating disorders don’t discriminate.”

You may have seen these statements online and most people would agree, right? But in reality, is this ethos really working in practice?

When plus-size model Tess Holliday spoke out about having anorexia, people on social media lost their minds. It seemed impossible for people to comprehend someone in a larger body restricting their eating. After all, our society teaches “eat less, move more” as the simple equation for weight loss, so there was an assumption that she must be lying because if she was really restricting, how could she possibly still be fat? Of course this resulted in a lot of online trolling for Tess, and in turn the underlying reinforcement of the idea that only thin people can have restrictive eating disorders.

When I say restrictive eating disorders, I’m referring to Anorexia and Bulimia. I think many people automatically picture a thin person, usually white, young and female, associated with these eating disorders. Often, fat people are associated with binge eating, but in reality thin people can binge and fat people can restrict. Many people aren’t familiar with the term OSFED - Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder – which is actually the most prevalent diagnostic category, because eating disorders don’t fit into tidy boxes like we expect them to. They are complex and nuanced; there’s no one reason someone develops an eating disorder (and all the many reasons are way too long to go into here!) Atypical Anorexia can come under this category, which is anorexia but at a “healthy” weight or above. The issue here is what is deemed as “healthy” is based on a flawed BMI system, created for white European men only, so it has been recognised as not an accurate predictor of health.
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There are also biases and assumptions of medical professionals, plus the limited resources on offer for eating disorder treatment, which often results in the “sickest” people getting help (i.e. thinnest). It’s a reactionary system, based on restoring someone's weight, though of course as eating disorders are to do with mental health, having a “healthy” weight does not mean the person has recovered. The short version of this is, the entire system is broken and people are not getting the help they need. (No disrespect to anyone working in the NHS, you’re just trying your best and I thank you for that.)

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