Eating Disorders: What’s Feminism Got to Do With It?

There has been a lot of talk in the Twittersphere lately about feminism and eating disorders. Because I live and breathe my feminism and my eating disorder research and activism, I’ve been struggling to reconcile my commitment to making sure people feel heard and my commitment to clarifying what I feel are misconceptions about the links between feminism and eating disorders.

Certainly, it can’t be denied that some have adopted the name “feminism” and supported some decidedly shady claims or research. Then again, people of all stripes have done shady research with questionable motives and outcomes. Science and research are never neutral. Everything from what is seen as being “important enough” to study to how results are interpreted and used takes place in a socio-political context. Try as we might, we can’t fully remove ourselves from our research, whether we research micro-RNA or eating disorders (or both? It’s probably possible … Continue reading →

Plenty of Reasons to Sit Still: The Problem(s) with Fitspiration

I can’t quite believe that I have yet to write a post here about fitspiration, given the ire that it provokes in me. And there you have it, right off the bat, my bias: I find fitspiration to be incredibly problematic – this will be controversial, but I often wonder if it could be more dangerous than thinspiration, in its subtleness. Fitspiration posts closely resemble what we are asked to do with our bodies every single day: eat “clean,” work out in a gym, put mind over matter, be productive, and succeed. Unlike thinspiration, these messages target a wide demographic of people with and without eating disorders; they carry neoliberal undertones (ok, probably overtones).

I’m not the only one interested in unpacking the issues with fitspiration. Indeed, I’m far from the first to call out these problematic messages (I especially like this article!). Researchers, too, have become interested in … Continue reading →