Why Your Story SUCKS | Writer's rants & discussions

Eating Disorders Don't Work Like This + Thinspo Content

I'm going to put a trigger warning here, as by the title this rant revolves around stories about Anorexia as well as some of the pro-ana community on here. So if you're sensitive to the topic, yeet over this bitch.

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I thought about a section of Wattpad I hadn't thought of in years, and that is the anorexia genre. I browsed through some of the books, cringe fucking my throat with an 8-inch cock remembering how I used to read them. Yes, I used to be an edgy child reading terrible books about mental illnesses and kidnap, recovery IS possible I promise. 

Quite a few of these books can be summed up to: "I'm bullied for no reason at school and everyone hates me and they call me fat I'm 90 lbs but when I look in the mirror I see 900 lbs, did I mention I have pale skin, blue eyes, long brown hair, and an hourglass body but I'm actually really ugly? Oh wait never mind I'm falling in love with this boy who told me I'm perfect the way I am so now my eating disorder is solved!! :D". Some are even fanfictions, there's BTS fanfictions about either an anorexic MC or one of the BTS boys is (I pity those men so much sometimes), and they fall in love and they learn to love themselves. It's not far off from the whole "just eat a cheeseburger" saying.

Firstly, love doesn't fix mental illnesses, 9 times outta 10 it makes it worse.

Secondly, let's talk about eating disorders for those who aren't very familiar. You're not likely to form an ED simply because the bully at school called you a fatass or solely because you hate your body, people with EDs typically have them as a form of control over something due to not having control of other things (I.e they were abused, shitty childhood/home life in general, the list goes on).

Or they have an addictive personality type and that's another way the obsession with food and weight forms. The obsession usually isn't about losing weight because you're fat as much as it is the control and the high it can give you when you see progress in your ED. It's why people like Eugenia Cooney for example won't recover, she gets a high from it just like doing drugs. Even then, there's still other reasons and deeper reasons someone may develop an unhealthy relationship with food but I'm not delving into every single one.

Yes, people do have EDs for being teased about their weight or because they have a warped self-image, but like I said, there's usually something more to it than just that and psychology has confirmed this so I'm not talking out of my ass.

A bit from an article by VeryWellMind.com:

Society and culture do influence eating behavior as well as our concept of ideal body shape. However, such environmental factors cannot fully account for the presence of eating disorders. If they did, 100% of the people exposed to the environmental factor(s) would develop an eating disorder, which we know is not the case.

And yes, a lot of anorexics do see fat or places they could lose weight in when they look in the mirror, though not exactly in the same way people think. People with EDs know that they're sick, they're not oblivious and think they're 700 pounds like people commonly think. (This is why professionals tell you not to make comments on their bodies and tell them how skinny they look or have a dramatic reaction, that makes them feel accomplished and gives the high. Same goes for telling them they look healthy or good, healthy and positive things to them means they're fat and not doing well enough in their disorder.)

I hope that explains it well enough. Going back to the books, this is why they're inaccurate and shallow. I'm sure most are written by edgy teens who want to write sad books which would explain why they're so bad, but they just reinforce misinformation about eating disorders and romanticize them (everything is romanticized in this shit pit though so that ain't new).

So I can partially excuse those books if they're by dumb kids, although I do think they can act as an introduction into the world of EDs and communities, they did for me considering they made me more curious about it.

But there is also a side to this category that irritates me more, which would be thinspo books or eating disorder diaries. If you don't know, "Thinspo" is basically just pictures of emaciated bodies or just super skinny girls portrayed in an aesthetic fashion, or its quotes, it's eating disorder fuel to put it simply.

There's even a Pro-Ana tag on wattpad. That and certain other words should be banned or at least be rejected from the algorithm (and I know this is possible to do because it's sort of done on Inkitt), but they're not, of course they're not.

OH and when you search Anorexia, wattpad has a help message with numbers at the top. Though when you search Pro-Ana, which is where most of the thinspo and diaries were, you get nothing about help, so again, it is not registered in their system as a tag with triggering content.

Anyway, back on track: the people posting these will say it's not pro-ana but if you're using pictures to trigger yourself yet doing it publicly and posting it, that IS pro-ana behavior. Others will find it and use it, therefore you are helping others progress their disorder. There is no other reason to post something publicly if it isn't for others to see, that should be common fucking sense.

When it comes to diaries, it's usually people documenting their eating disorder progress, that's a debate within itself. But I've seen some people even write in the methods they used or they write out numbers such as calorie intake, how much they weigh, what they ate that day and the exact ounces/measurements, etc. And that can also count as thinspo, numbers are an anorexics/bulimics worst enemy. But yeah mates I don't think I need to explain why that's not okay to do.

In both types of these books I talked about there's usually people in the comments talking about their EDs openly, so it's not a hidden secret to the user others are using their shit to further harm themselves even though the users will "disclaim" they're not pro-ana or put a trigger warning that people will just ignore. Which is the part that annoys me the most.

I'm rather on the fence when it comes to journaling eating disorder progress. While it is good you find others you can relate to, it should either be done in a way that is less likely to be triggering to others or don't document it on here at all. As I've said way too many times, the majority of users on this app are younger and female, and it is very easy to find content like this on here cause Wattpad will recommend you the most random things (again, they need to ban certain tags from getting promoted in their algorithm).

I've reported a lot of these books, Wattpad tends to take stuff promoting forms of self-harm more seriously. So if you happen to cross any of this shit, just know you can report it and something will likely be done pretty quickly, especially if you mention words like anorexia in your report.

If you're one of the people who writes about their ED in detail, fine but if you give any of a fuck about others, stop lying to yourself and saying it's not pro-ana to publish graphic details and exact numbers. It's no different than someone with a cutting problem posting pics of their fresh cuts in a SH group and acting like that's not going to affect others because oh you said you're not pro-self-harm. You are avoiding responsibility. I'm not saying you are solely responsible for what others choose to do cause you're not, but you are responsible for what you contribute aka your graphically detailed information that does not need to be out there.