This post, like so many others, was meant to be a comment on someone else’s Instagram post, but ended up here instead because I just really hate Instagram comment sections, and hate to post there, and besides there’s not enough room for a full rant there anyway. So if you don’t care about social media, you can move right along. I’m just heated and have to get this off my chest, and what else is this stupid blog for if not getting dumb shit off my chest.

What happened is, this Instagrammer that I’m a fan of posted yet another hilarious reel the other day: in it, he’s making fun of those people who love to tell you, with visible pleasure, how they “haven’t eaten anything today,” “I’m so lightheaded,” “I’ve just been so busy,” etc. etc., and it’s painfully, cringily obvious that they’re just begging for you to be amazed by how skinny they are and how little they care about food. Wow! Should we call Bella Hadid?! is among this Instagrammer’s hilariously sarcastic responses to this person, whom we’ve all known at some point.

After clicking “like” and “save”, as I always do on these reels of his, because it’s always been a major pet peeve of mine when people do this and I love how he calls it out, I sauntered on over to the comments, and what did I find there but a bunch of butthurt whining and self-pity.

If you’re butthurt by this joke (which probably means that you’re the person he’s making fun of in this video), then you are part of the problem.

“But I’m actually really struggling with an ED, and you’re making me feel like I can’t reach out for help for fear of being judged! 🥺”

One: “lol I haven’t eaten anything today” to a random coworker — who may or may not be struggling with an ED themselves, you don’t know — does not equal “reaching out for help,” and you know it. You’re just being selfish; you’d rather get a little bit of attention than consider someone else’s feelings/triggers; you really think you’re that important? If you really want to “reach out for help,” then why are you acting cutesy with some random coworker who has their own shit going on and can’t really do anything to help you anyway? What, you want them to drop what they’re doing and offer to spoon-feed you a yogurt cup? Do you want them to help you wipe your butt after you go potty too? No fr. If you need help with an eating issue, you have the internet; you can find some actual help.

Two: I’ve known plenty of people with real, serious EDs, and none of them were ever the type to whine to randos about how they “haven’t eaten anything today!”. On the contrary, they keep this information to themselves. They are secretive about it. They don’t want to call attention to it. They’re not likely to volunteer information about what they have or haven’t eaten. They are ashamed. That’s what real EDs look like.

I’ve also known plenty of people who do this — “omygosh, I haven’t eaten anything today, I keep forgetting!” — and what do you know: none of those people had EDs. Not one of them. This is exclusively something said by people who do not have EDs, but who kind of glamorize EDs and in a sick way wish they had one. They’re just so eager for people to be concerned about them.

“Well how do you know those people didn’t have EDs, Mith?! Maybe they just mask their symptoms and keep it to themselves.” When you have an ED, you have symptoms. Symptoms that are visible to anyone who knows what to notice. I’m not necessarily talking about weight changes. I’m well aware that someone can be suffering and not be underweight. (They might even be overweight. I once knew someone whose anorexia had over time morphed into binge eating disorder, and she had become quite heavy; and I daresay she was actually suffering more than anyone else in that support group.) It’s a certain hypersensitivity around food. The people who love to loudly complain about how little they’ve eaten today are, in my experience, the same people who will e.g. go get McDonalds or Starbucks on a whim with their friends, are generally relaxed or even lazy in their approach to nourishing themselves, and happily enjoy food in all kinds of social situations. Zero neuroses.

“Well don’t assume, Mith! Maybe they’re just faking it!” Um, so, they’re so good at masking their symptoms that they have no symptoms whatsoever? An eating disorder is just that, an eating disorder: it involves the way you relate to food. If your relationship to food is virtually unaffected, then you don’t have one, sorry. At this point, the label “ED” has perhaps become a bit too inclusive, like the “autism spectrum” diagnosis. It means so many things now that it means nothing anymore — and flaunting that label when you’re basically a normie with a few little quirks, kind of does an injustice to those people who are really seriously afflicted.

If you think that noisily LOLing about how little you’ve eaten today to random people in social settings is “reaching out for help,” then you are lying to yourself.

In all seriousness, I’m sorry you are having a hard time with food. I know some people actually do struggle to eat enough, even if they don’t have a classic ED. Issues with food are not limited to folks with EDs. Like one of my friends suffers from chronic hypophagia due to underlying health issues, and genuinely struggles to keep her weight up, and I feel for her. But she also doesn’t go around loudly complaining to everyone she meets about “oh look at poor little me, I’m just too busy to eat!” No, she is able to talk about it openly but also deals with it in a mature way. It’s possible to deal with such conditions without announcing it loudly to the whole world and begging for attention.

Because did you ever think that by loudly complaining you may actually be triggering someone in your vicinity who is actually trying to recover from a real ED? This is why this Instagrammer is making fun of you. You’re being self-centered. And you’re glamorizing diet culture by flaunting your failure to take care of yourself like it’s a blue ribbon.

“No I’m not! I literally said it was bad that I haven’t eaten today” — nope, we heard your tone loud and clear. If you really thought it was bad, if you really knew the first thing about EDs, you’d keep your mouth shut about it, or at least you wouldn’t joke about it in such a cavalier way.

So spare us the pity party. If you need help, get help. But stop lying to yourself. If you’re butthurt by this joke then you’re part of what’s wrong with the world.