It is Truly a new Era…
Content warning: This blog discusses weight loss injectables and eating disorders, both vastly complex topics that involve both cultural complexity and individual nuance. Take care of yourself and what you need always, and know that there is never one right or wrong answer for your own healing, but there is access, choices, process, and gathering more information to consider. Thanks for being here.
This is a blog post about what it has been like to be an eating disorder dietitian as the hurricane of weight loss injectable medications have come onto the market. It is always difficult to pinpoint the “why” around the increase in relapses I am witnessing, as eating disorders are a means of coping with trauma, but I do find myself wondering if in this new environment where people- in the mainstream, in eating disorder activist communities, in fat activist communities- decide to publicly take and talk about these drugs, or just visibly shrink before their audiences, if this is a potent “why” for the increase in relapses we are witnessing. The message as it is circulating to me strikes loud and clear: it’s okay to engage in dangerous, extractive, and expensive behaviors if it means you can have a smaller body. Which is the definition of an eating disorder. I just wish so many more voices weren’t a part of this sick conversation now, exponentially increasing the harm.
As a practitioner I have always honored and respected body sovereignty. I have no way of knowing or understanding the pain another human is going through and I am by no means a person who can say what is best or not for the person experiencing their own life. I would, however, still would love it and think it would be a smart collective harm reduction strategy if people didn’t talk about it, if people didn’t have to advertise (without asking consent) the things that they are doing and promoting that collude with anti-fatness, dieting, the thin ideal, and all of the harms and violences that these ideas, born of systems of oppression, cause. But that’s the thing with the ego part of it all, people can’t seem to do it quietly, they insist on talking about how they are shrinking. I think that this is because it feels good to the ego that colludes with the idea that there is a “moral” way to have a body. Seems off to me, and born from unwell minds.
We know that the drugs cause harmful side effects, that people who need them to manage their conditions are having trouble accessing them as the weight loss market sky rockets, and, as Sirius Bonner said, the powers that be will, like all the other “miracle solutions” for our “unruly bodies”, eventually come to find these drugs are in fact not that and reflect honestly on the harm caused- but only after a lot of people (who already have a lot of money) make a lot more.
The grief that I am managing as I witness this new era pummel us is great and makes my work even more challenging than it already was. But I know that this isn’t the end of the story, this isn’t the whole story. My colleagues and I have weathered a lot more and I know that we can weather this. I have a tattoo on my arm “hold chaos with compassion, the magic is in the mess” and think of Prentis Hemphill’s words- chaos is necessary for embodiment practice to deepen. I trust that. I trust mine and my teacher’s knowing.
But my grief is a drop in the bucket to all the folks who are committed to staying within their recovery as this harshness intensifies. I am in awe of your fortitude, and though it is my deepest wish that you didn’t have to weather this garbage, I am bowing to your bravery and resilience and commitment to yourself.
If you are having a hard time in this new era, know that you are not alone. Others still hold the torchlight and truth that our bodies do not need to be controlled to a standard informed by a dominant idea that is mentally ill.
My teachers nurtured within me deep roots and simple yet profound lessons to hold me through my own healing and chaos, that still pummels me like surprising waves welcoming me towards deeper and deeper levels of intimacy with my body story, my life, and who I am to the core once the trauma and lies and performing and ideas about morality are all exposed and transmuted. I know that this is the way towards the future that we envision where justice and care are the foundations for our bodies and our healing, individual and collective.
And so I’ll keep at it, with reverence and solidarity for all those who hold steady through this time. Just like our bodies, Things will change, and they will change again. Trust yourself, trust your process, and be more gentle than you can possibly muster with yourself.
I am sending you all the love and care and respect.
Keep Going.