Which is somewhat fucking different.

FFS, first I’m what? A merry dog murderer, and now what? I’m accusing other women of being anorexic as some generic snarky thing?

How big a hypocrite do you think I am exactly?

(though rereading what I wrote, ouch, that whole “washing their teeth intheir own stomach acid thing” is way over the line, that I apologise for, the internet diagnosis seems valid though, I never actually said “she is suffering from an ED” I said, I quote;

being this obsessed with other people’s amount of body fat is a clear sign of the pretty psychotic stage (yeah, me an alot of other people with EDs I’ve talked to about it have also experienced it, so it seems like a ridiculously normal stage of an ED) people with severe eating disorders go through when they start projecting their body dysmorphia at everyone around themselves even as they push their body harder and harder because ZOMG THEY’RE SO FAT!!!!.

it was diagnostic, she seems to be acting like someone with a severe form of body dysmorphia, not “OMG, teh thinniness! It is teh wrong and teh Sick!”, and mores to the point, it was based on her words, not her appearance, give me at least that much credit)

Additionally, among “skinny white bitches” who are preoccupied with their appearance, anorexia’s not a bad guess (nor is bulimia)

It’s a pretty crappy guess actually, eating disorders are not always visible, and their affects are not just that the sufferers is thin, in fact the reverse is sometimes true because depressions and other disorders can in fact lead to a gross increase in weight.

All it means is that the person, fundamentally, hates themselves, and hates their body, extreme skinniness is in fact merely the most obvious sort of symptomology of an ED, even if they’re binge eating when no one is looking while eating nothing but a singular stick of carrot during the myriad social eating rituals that people like me with EDs find really fucking hard to cope with, and make a wide variety of social interactions really fucking difficult.

The Bulimia Fairies are, remember, Purge and Binge.

Between the Oh-No-Not-At-All-Externalizing-Or-Nothing-Crazy-Lady and the woman she was mocking for “being fat”, either of them Could have an ED, but only the crazy lady showed any signs (that is, what she sounded like, I haven’t actually seen an image of her yet btw, so “she’s skinny therefore she’s anorexic” again, cannot have explained my thought processes there).

I wonder, is talking about a “paranoid” or “delusional” thought process slamming paranoid schizophrenics?

No, but talking about a “schizo” thought process is. Paranoia and delusions are things that can and do exist outside of paranoid schizophrenia, which is why it’s not specifically insulting to schizophrenics the way that talking about all thin women as “anorexics” is.

We can talk about how someone is driving our kids to eating disorders without turning “anorexic” into an insult.

Because, she’s not saying that people should starve themselves. She’s not telling people that they can never be thin enough. She’s not really advocating for anything that explicitly advances anorexia.

I guess we watched a different clip, because that seemed to be exactly what she was saying to me. She’s strongly encouraging people to unrealistically restrict their eating and strive for an unrealistic body weight. That screams “anorexia” to me.

Moreso, though, I think it lets Roth off the hook for what she’s pushing. Classifying her as “pro-ana” effectively marginalizes her to an extreme that I don’t think is really justified by her actual positions. I do think she is advocated for disordered eating and disordered relationships with one’s body, but I don’t think she’s really that out of the mainstream in what she’s saying. I know a lot of people here see Jordin Sparks and think, “well, she’s not fat” but she is precisely what the medical establishment and dieting industry is targeting. She IS what they are talking about when they bemoan the “epidemic” of fat children. Marginalizing Roth dismisses that she really isn’t off the reservation on what she’s saying. She’s being more blunt about it, perhaps, but her message is strictly mainstream. If we object to that message, we need to question that mainstream campaign against fat people. Not dismiss it as a fringe. Because while Roth is garnering attention for attacking Jordin Sparks, there are thousands of movements going on in this country to target the “pre-obese” for intervention and dieting. “Pre-obese”. As in not even technically “obese” or “overweight” like Jordin Sparks. Roth is just the tip of a big ice-berg. She’s not just a solitary cube bobbing on its own.

Sweet machine (laura) pointed me at [...]

While I don’t like setting up hierarchies of oppression or falling into the trap of viewing them as competitive with each other, I have to admit, I’m with BStu that it has to be stressed that the current incarnation of fatphobia is not just the “flip side” of thin prejudice. Not because I want to trivialize prejudice thin women face, but because we need to remember what a serious and precarious situation fat people are in right now.

To a fat person this is not about body image or name-calling anymore. This is literally about our viability in society. This debate (and the thousands of others like it that rage every day) are about: is it ok to prevent a fat person from being a role model? A teacher? A doctor? Is it ok to decide a fat person can’t represent your company? Or travel by plane? Or pay the same health insurance costs? Or get the same care? Or be treated fairly in the workplace? Or anywhere? To walk around unharrassed?

And though most people came down against MeMe in this case, that’s very much a function of the fact that most people felt Jordin isn’t “fat enough” to warrant discrimination. But if she *were* fat “enough,” the discussion would have gone differently. There would have been a swarm of people chiming in about how MeMe had a “valid” point. If not here, then certainly elsewhere on the internets.

That said, I think it’s as ridiculous to judge based on thinness as fatness. Without qualification it’s ignorant and absurd. I also am absolutely opposed to holding anorexia up to ridicule in any way.

However there clearly is a cognitive style that we associate with anorexia (rightly or wrongly) which we need some reasonable means of talking about. I wonder, is talking about a “paranoid” or “delusional” thought process slamming paranoid schizophrenics? Are we really talking about the same thing? Or do we understand that we’re using the term in a loose, non-clinical sense?

And if the term anorexic is offensive (and probably inaccurate) in this context – what would be a better term? Eating-disordered? Fatphobic? — I’d have to say there’s more going on with MeMe than simple fatphobia – this is also about her valorizing her own thinness and constructing a bizarre narrative about it that seems pretty pathological. Is the term pro-ana up to the job?

But there’s nothing wrong with a person being slim, or large breasted, or blond, or any of the other things the patriarchy tries to make the rest of us feel bad for not being. What’s wrong is some people having a sense of entitlement to tell others what they should look like.

Only a doctor has any business telling you your weight needs to change.

Additionally, among “skinny white bitches” who are preoccupied with their appearance, anorexia’s not a bad guess (nor is bulimia). The percentage of women with an eating disorder in western society means that, frankly, if you guess someone who is very concerned with their outward physical appearance/weight has disordered eating patterns, you’re probably right. It’s not okay to use it as an INSULT, per se, but I do think it’s fine to basically say that someone with disordered eating patterns has no right, whatsoever, to criticize anyone else’s weight or caloric intake.

And the fact of the matter is that she is advancing a belief that all women should be at least as thin as she is, based on the ideas that her weight is the ultimate health ideal and that there is no such thing as a woman being too thin, thus leaving herself open to being reminded rather harshly that all currently available statistical data suggests that neither is close to being true.

Is “skinny bitch” accurate shorthand for the above? Maybe not. But let’s be clear about who made Roth’s body the issue first; it was, in fact, Roth herself.

There is no such thing as a fat anorexic.

I am well aware that fat anorexics cannot be diagnosed clinically as such. Diagnosing them instead with a catch-all is a significant barrier to treatment. If not technically, there are still fat anorexics in practice.

They can exhibit all of the characteristic behaviors and psychology of an anorexic, but by being labeled as having a non-specified eating disorder they are classified in a manner which even some professionals don’t fully appreciate. I know a lot of professionals do understand the problem this represents and use the ED-NOS diagnosis appropriately, but I can’t ignore the first-hand accounts of women dealing with medical professionals who just didn’t get it because they couldn’t accept a fat person exhibiting the characteristics of anorexia. Practically speaking, there absolutely is such a thing as a fat anorexic. Treating fat people suffering from anorexia isn’t a threat to people suffering from clinical anorexia. Its just treating fat people suffering from anorexia. I’m not saying they have to be treated exactly the same way, but the first-hand accounts I have heard make deeply concerned that fat people with anorexia-like eating disorders are struggling to get treatment at all.

BStu Says:
May 28th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Absolutely, any negative remarks about her size are neither fair, reasonable, or appropriate. Even less fair is external diagnosis of an eating disorder on the basis of her outward appearance. This is what is constantly done with fat people and its not right. Being thin isn’t proof of anorexia any more than being fat is proof of overeating. Simply put, fat is an awful proof for overeating, so I don’t doubt that thinness is likewise. It also contributes to the notion that anorexia is a thin disorder. I’ve known more than a few fat anorexics who’ve struggled to get treatment or even acknowledgement of their eating disorder because of their size. Simply put, if you’re fat, you are supposed to be anorexic so the disorder goes ignored. I would agree that at all times using assumed ED’s as an insult is wrong and unproductive.

Sorry, but you’re flat out wrong here. There is no such thing as a fat anorexic. In order to be diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, one must meet certain diagnostic criteria, including (but not limited to)being at 85% of their “ideal” weight (or having a BMI that is less than 18) and having lost their menses. If they do not meet those two criterion they would be ED-NOS: eating disorder not otherwise specified. It’s difficult for anyone to receive treatment in the US due to insurance issues, but there’s a reason that those with the lowest BMI are given priority: they are physically the ones most at risk of dying from the disorder. It is not discrimination based on aesthetics or incorrect ideas, it is medical fact.