My heart sank when I saw the BBC horizon show 'The restaurant that burns calories'. It is my eating disorder’s pot of gold. This show promotes the disordered belief that I must drive myself to earn every meal through exercise. If I do eat, I must punish myself by ‘burning it off’. Other compulsory behaviors such as purging and abusing laxatives reflect this belief that a meal can stain our worth. It feels like the BBC is broadcasting my ED’s thoughts, and luring others in. 

The most vicious, evil symptom of anorexia is its ability to deny their diagnosis. Beyond that, an ED is convinced of their exceptional ability to manage their behaviors. Despite anorexia’s title of having the highest mortality rate of any mental illness, an anorexic person is unable to comprehend the fatality of the path they are being led down. This is an illness that kills yet its victims are strung into a delusion they are an exception; that they are able to maintain an unhealthy weight.

And this is where my anger lies. The sheer ignorance and misunderstanding of the show not only encourages my unhealthy compulsive behaviours, its very existence undermines my ability to take my illness seriously,  My ED wounds me with these words. It tells me 'See you aren’t ill. You don’t need treatment. Everything I’ve been telling you all along is true, all that guilt and shame was justified.'  It is such a long fight to convince myself I am unwell, and even harder to convince the world. The common misconception, that eating disorders are a consequence of wanting to be thinner, is just the tip of the iceberg. Below lurks a deep unhappiness, and lack of self worth which leads a person to starve themselves, burpee their way into hospital, and lose their life. An anorexic loses all rationality, and devotes their life to weight loss.

It's like a offering a cigarette to a lung cancer patient 

It's like chucking a beer in an alcoholic's face.

There is, of course, an argument that those on the other end of the spectrum will be struggling with compulsions to overeat therefore risking their health. The diet industry is a seemingly well intentioned effort to help people become healthier. However these disordered ‘rules’ that prevent one from listening to their bodies' needs (hunger, rest etc) are not a sustainable, nor a healthy approach to weight loss. Balanced, regular meals and exercise are the most sustainable and kind method to maintain a healthy weight. I can’t believe I, someone who is treatment for anorexia, feel obliged to explain how to lose weight healthily.

However, if one must insist on this extremely irresponsible rhetoric, then I put one simple request; a trigger warning, and BEAT’s helpline number. Not only might this save someone from the dark spiral an ED can lead them down, following such uneducated words, it will also give respect to the fatality of this disease. This goes not only for 'the restaurant that burn's calories', but for all BBC articles encouraging disordered eating/exercise behaviours, of which I have seen many.