Weight loss blogs and eating disorders

via

I came of age during a time when the internet was just beginning to get popular.  In middle and high school, I still had to do my school research in a real library (imagine that!).  Even though I have been active in social networking sites for quite a few years, I didn't know what personal blogging was until a couple of years ago, let alone see the point of it.

As you can see in my story here, I have a lot of experience with yo-yo dieting, restriction, and large amounts of weight loss.  What really brought this post about was that I happened to come across a genre of blogs dedicated to weight loss and dieting.  The authors of these blogs usually list their stats directly on the front page of their sites (height, weight, % fat, current weight, goal weight, weight loss, weight loss per week/month/year, etc...).  Their blogs focus on what they are eating, the diets that they are on, how much they are exercising, and how they can't wait until they reach their weight loss goals.  These sites are also riddled with 'thinspiration' images and pictures of the author's own weight loss. 

While I 'get' the fact that these blogs may help some people shed a few pounds, in terms of a weight-loss support community, I also find myself having very intense and negative feelings toward them.  Because of my story, and because of my experience with weight loss and dieting leading to eating disorders, I am extremely weary of the slippery slope that websites like these present.

Many of these blogs discuss 'being bad' and 'being good' with regards to food.

As in...

"My friends bought me a birthday cake for my birthday, and I didn't have ONE bite.  I was so good!  It was difficult, but I am so proud of myself!"

or chastising posts like...

"I was SO bad this weekend.  I went to a party and ate so many BAD foods.  I totally broke my diet.  I'm so mad at myself.  Why can't I just control myself around food?"

(Just to clarify... the above examples of posts are fictional.  But, they are thoughts that I have previously written in my own journals, and they are very similar, thematically, to what I have found on many weight-loss blogs.)

Having gone through similar scenarios, I know that once you start categorizing food as 'good' or 'bad', you're in trouble.  Food is fuel.  Calories and fats are gas for your engine.  It makes me so sad to see that these beautiful people are breaking down their happiness into how much weight they did or didn't lose.  It devastates me to see they view their lives as somewhat incomplete until they get to that 'goal weight'.

But, the reason that I'm so bothered is that I could have been one of them.

I feel so lucky that I didn't have the access to blogs when I was going through the height of my weight loss or yo-yo dieting.  All I had to 'vent' in were my own personal journals-- a place where I could keep my crazy thoughts safe and sound.  A place where no one but me could "comment" on what I had written. 

Nobody else but me could instantly 'congratulate' me on my weight loss, or give me tips on how to lose weight.

If I had been a blogger at the height of my eating disorder, I would have inevitably had a thinspiration or weight loss blog.  I would have felt pressure and competition with other weight loss bloggers, and I'm positive that my eating disorder would have been incredibly more detrimental that it was.

I want so badly to tell every one of these bloggers that diets DON'T work.  Most people find that it is tremendously difficult to stay on a restrictive diet, and there are usually three outcomes: maintained weight loss (if your body is naturally happy with the lower weight), weight gain greater or equal to what was lost, or, in the worst case, continous disordered eating for the rest of one's life.

I'm certainly not one to want to discourage people from getting healthy.  I just want to save them from the inevitable crash that is to come if they strive to keep their weight at a place that is not comfortable for their body.  I want to save them from years of disordered thinking.  I want to tell them to eat intuitively, let their weight land where it may, and accept their bodies   I want to tell them that they are beautiful, and that they should throw out the scale.

And I've tried.  I've done all of the above.  But, most of the time it doesn't make a difference. 

Because they haven't learned all the lessons.
They havent gone through the experiences.
They haven't been disillusioned by the diet and weight-loss world.

Because they still believe that once they get to that goal weight they can start living.

And nothing that I say will change their beliefs, just as nothing that anyone told me in the throes of my ED changed mine.


How do you feel about weight loss/thinspiration blogs? 
(I didn't get into pro-ana blogs because that is a long post in and of itself!)

Do you think that it's possible for weight loss blogs to lead to eating disorders?

♡Yasi