are eating disorders the "lavender menace" of the fat acceptance movement?

Bitch has a good article about eating disorders in the fat acceptance movement. A lot of people (mostly women) involved in the movement who suffer from "disordered eating" are afraid to admit it. They feel they would be labelled as self-loathing by trying to "blame" their weight on eating disorders, or accused of discrediting the movement by making it look like a bunch of people who want to glorify illness.

It is precisely because eating disorders are not openly discussed that many fat people who suffer from bulimia, binge-eating disorder, and pathorexia (defined as disordered appetite, and used to refer to an entire spectrum of disordered eating) feel they aren’t welcome in the fat acceptance movement. Eating disorders are the proverbial elephant in the room that most members of the fat acceptance community pretend not to see. Some of the hushed voices surrounding the issue may be due to the relative youth of the movement, which is still finding its footing and setting priorities. And yet it is precisely because this movement is just now gaining real momentum that the time is ripe for having these conversations. But because the otherwise-diverse movement is silent about eating disorders, it’s easy to see why these hot-button topics seem off-limits. The silence around them magnifies the shame of being both fat and eating disordered in a community that refuses to complicate itself. Quite simply, people with eating disorders are the Lavender Menace of the fat acceptance movement.

Sad. Because it's a young movement (comparable to the feminist movement in the early '60s), there isn't yet a single unifying agenda. Everyone who promotes fat acceptance has something different they want to get out if it. I mean, most of us probably want the same basic cultural shifts: To stop treating fat people like they have no right to exist and take part in society; to make fat-shaming and mocking (think Norbert or those horrible Anti-Gym commercials as unacceptable as blackface; to stop putting so much desire on a statistically impossible underweight body type that the vast majority of women absolutely loathe what they see in the mirror. But there are also many personal agendas.

Probably the thing I want to see accomplished most is to stop the automatic "fat = unhealthy" equation in our society. It's especially infuriating when you see medical professionals, who ought to fucking know better, make it. Not everyone who is fat is that way because they sit on their asses all day eating cupcakes. And not all fat people are in bad health. I'm a size 20, and I eat better and get more exercise (due to not having a car) than the average American. My blood pressure, blood sugar, heart rate, and cholesterol are all perfectly normal. I can sprint up a flight of stairs and barely be out of breath. And I totally resent having my overall health, to say nothing of my worth to society, judged soley by my waistline.

In somewhat related news, today is International No Diet Day!