I've been reading your blog for a long time now and it's amazing. Your Sunday Smorgasbord is always so fascinating... !!!

Why thank you! My years as a journalist have definitely honed my skills for finding all things weird, unusual, and funny. You should see my Google search history!! ;)

I enjoy your Sunday Smorgasbord as well, especially the fact that you include some good, peer-reviewed research studies.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the article titled "Fatorexia: the newest eating disorder"... I think it was the spin on anorexia ("fatorexia") that made me want to laugh/cry. I find socially constructed, nonsense terminology really annoying. The term 'anorexia' has a real medical meaning ('loss of appetite'). Terms such as 'fatorexia', 'pregorexia', 'manorexia' and 'tanorexia' are silly made-up terms, which ridicule a real mental illness, or provide a misrepresentation.

The article on "Fatorexia" makes a point, but it fails to relate to some of the most important, typifying components of EDs - i.e. anxiety, depression, obsessions, compulsions, asceticism etc.

I also find it frankly annoying when anorexia nervosa is reduced to a person looking in the mirror and seeing a fat person, something which many people with the illness deny. They often don't see a fat person. Either, they don't care how thin they are, they feel 'safer' being thin, or they become obsessed with the details of one part of their body (e.g. belly, thighs etc.). They may even be concerned about their thinness, but be too anxious to change their behaviours and gain weight - as I was.

Most importantly, there is A LOT more to EDs than 'body image' issues.

I enjoy your Sunday Smorgasbord as well, especially the fact that you include some good, peer-reviewed research studies.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the article titled "Fatorexia: the newest eating disorder"... I think it was the spin on anorexia ("fatorexia") that made me want to laugh/cry. I find socially constructed, nonsense terminology really annoying. The term 'anorexia' has a real medical meaning ('loss of appetite'). Terms such as 'fatorexia', 'pregorexia', 'manorexia' and 'tanorexia' are silly made-up terms, which ridicule a real mental illness, or provide a misrepresentation.

The article on "Fatorexia" makes a point, but it fails to relate to some of the most important, typifying components of EDs - i.e. anxiety, depression, obsessions, compulsions, asceticism etc.

I also find it frankly annoying when anorexia nervosa is reduced to a person looking in the mirror and seeing a fat person, something which many people with the illness deny. They often don't see a fat person. Either, they don't care how thin they are, they feel 'safer' being thin, or they become obsessed with the details of one part of their body (e.g. belly, thighs etc.). They may even be concerned about their thinness, but be too anxious to change their behaviours and gain weight - as I was.

Most importantly, there is A LOT more to EDs than 'body image' issues.

I don't mean to criticize; I LOVE your blog. Everything you post on here is usually fantastic. But I'm really disappointed that you posted that link to the "fatorexia" article. It just enforces so many dangerous, damaging myths, like "fat people just don't KNOW how fat they are," and "fat people think they're beautiful, when actually they're gross." These ideas are so widespread, and yet not at all true , and they're damaging to both ends of the "scale." (Pun not intended, but fairly opportune, I think!) After all, increasing undue shame on fat people is cruel and has very real consequences for their health and quality of life. And for people who have (or have had) eating disorders, the mind (well, my mind, anyway. Apparently yours didn't) immediately jumps to "what if that's me? What if I'm fat again and I just don't see it?" I mean, maybe I'm particularly triggered because of the particular point in recovery I'm at (bigger than I've literally ever been before, and recently getting rid of disordered thinking enough to realize that I actually don't look all that big at all)...and reading something like that, all I can think is that my eyes must be lying to me.
Sorry, the personal diatribe probably wasn't necessary. The damage to very fat people was my main point. Don't spread myths that fat people just don't know how "disgusting" they are...and for that matter, don't spread myths about how fat is inherently bad or gross. It's not.