07/01/2026
Depending on what your algorithm is showing you, you may have noticed that the pro-ED culture of the 2000s has returned with vengeance. There are people all over instagram and TikTok putting their disordered relationships with food and fitness on display as a lifestyle choice. The comments on these videos are well-meaning:
"You look sick. Please take better care of yourself."
"That's not enough calories. Please eat more."
"You aren't eating enough for how hard you're pushing yourself in the gym."
What the people behind those accounts are actually READING, though, is, "It's working!"
The starvation is working. The self-destruction is working. The purging is working. The long workouts on an empty stomach are working.
I know, because that's what I heard when I fell victim to this pro-ED culture in my 20s. I never got skinny, so nobody ever commented on me being too thin, but I reveled in any comment suggesting I looked tired or sick. My goal was to become too thin so that I would be worthy of inpatient care - not to get help, mind you, but to then compete with the other patients to see who could be the sickest. Because your sickness is a badge that you wear proudly and you WANT people to see it.
The kindest thing we can do is not engage with these accounts and to encourage social media platforms to shut them down. Not only are they terrible for the wellbeing of the person who is ill, but they're fueling other sick people looking for content to draw inspiration from.
These platforms are PROFITING off of engagement with accounts of people who are, quite literally, unaliving themselves in front of us. Enough is enough.
