You don't have to weigh 0 lbs to have a problem

I found this quote from the book Hope with eating disorders written by Lynn Crilly, on tumblr and I just HAD to post it here. It is so true! You don't have to weigh 0 lbs to have anorexia. You don't even have to be underweight to have it either! Your problem matters, no matter how much you weigh. Eating disorders are phsycological, not physical.

"The trend for ‘poorly pictures’, (which were advised against in a set of guidelines issued by Beat, the UK’s largest eating disorder charity, in 2010), can in reality prevent sufferers from seeking the help they need. We have been led to believe that if someone is a ‘normal’ weight, they cannot, by definition, have an eating disorder. Again, this isn’t always true.
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We have all seen the headlines which scream ‘I weighed just 4 1/2 stone!’ These stories are usually accompanied by a picture of the subject, looking shockingly skeletal, in their underwear. As a result, many people believe that the most important symptom of anorexia is weight loss, and that the lower the sufferer’s weight, the more severe their issue. This isn’t necessarily true. Again, it is always crucial for you to bear in mind that anorexia is a mental illness, not a physical one.

What truly categorizes anorexia is obsession. To reach astonishingly low weights which are reported in the press, a sufferer would have required time, not to mention a fairly small frame and a high metabolic rate to begin with. Some people starve for years without physically reaching a weight which is perceived as an urgent problem by the medical community. Are they still anorexic? The answer is a resounding yes.

Using weight to diagnose anorexia is like seeing how far someone can walk before determining if they have a broken leg. It simply doesn’t take into account the issues at the source of the disorder.

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—	‘Hope with Eating Disorders’, Lynn Crilly