Q:
I have a friend who I walk with in the mornings because we live in the same neighborhood and like to walk our dogs super early so we started linking up for morning walks and sometimes follow them with coffee. Prior to these walks, we weren’t that close, but we have gotten a lot closer over the 2.5ish years since. Over the past yearish, we both have been on what I guess I’d call “fitness journeys,” both of us committing to moving our bodies more through pilates and other workout classes. My own journey comes with some complications as I’m in recovery for an eating disorder that dominated most of my 20s and early-30s. But I’m learning how to divorce exercise and healthy behaviors from all that. And it’s actually going well! This friend doesn’t know about all that, as I only really talk about it with my partner and some of the friends who were closest to me during the worst of it. Even as we get closer, I haven’t really felt comfortable opening up to this friend and that has become even more true lately because this friend keeps saying things that absolutely ping as disordered eating behavior and talk for me and seemingly has NO idea. She’ll say things like how she “earned” the mocha latte she’s drinking because of the long walk we just did. This talk about earning food comes up a LOT. Or she’ll talk about cheat days or “being GOOD” during the week so she can “be BAD” on the weekend, where she’s definitely talking about calorie intake without actually saying the word calories. There are other examples too, it’s kind of constant. We don’t go to the same workout classes, but I’ve gone to a couple with her before but then stopped because she just kept talking about how she likes to not eat before working out. I dunno, I’m not actually fully triggered by her behavior because I’m at a point in my recovery where I don’t really get triggered by this kind of talk. I’m more just concerned for my friend and not really sure what to do since she seems to think the way she talks about food is nbd and I know how slippery that slope can be. But I also don’t want to offer unsolicited advice or armchair diagnose. I also don’t want to just stop walking with her as I do enjoy her friendship and wouldn’t want her to think she did something wrong. What do I dooooooo
A:
Oh boy, I can relate to a lot of what you’re saying!!!!! I’ve noticed in my own life that there has been a bit of a regression in the way people talk about food, health, bodies, etc., with a lot of disordered eating language thrown around SUPER casually. I think there’s probably a confluence of factors: the rise of MAHA and the scammy supplements and fads it comes with, thinness being so celebrated in culture like it’s the fucking 90s again, Ozempic, etc. I think there are a lot of people who only acknowledge eating disorders in their most extreme cases and therefore see their own unhealthy relationships to food and exercise as not only nothing to be concerned about but actually normal. Because in a lot of ways — these ways of talking about food HAVE become normalized again!
I encounter this a lot in the fitness/athletic spaces I occupy, too. People talk about “earning” food through exercise and also talk about not eating as if it’s a good thing. I play tennis with a demographic of wealthy, mostly white suburban straight women who LOVE to talk about food as if it is something to be earned and who also often do not eat enough about matches. They don’t have any clue I’ve struggled with disordered eating in the past, and their comments similarly don’t trigger me, but they do frustrate me and also make me concerned at just how normalized this talk is. (And also, their comments could easily trigger someone else who isn’t in the same place as I am — this is true for your friend, too. I’m glad you’re not triggered, but I wonder if there are other people in her life who struggle more to be around that.) Recently when another player asked how I had the energy to play two singles matches in a day, I replied: I ate enough food. She laughed, but I was serious. And I often talk with my teammates about needing to shift their mentality about pre-match food, which our bodies NEED!!!
I unfortunately see the things your friend is seeing all over social media all the time, especially from a particular brand of fitness/wellness influencers. There are plenty of fitness/wellness influencers who do NOT make an enemy of food, but if your friend has found her algorithm on the wrong side of things, then she’s even more likely to keep repeating these things and leaning into this mentality, because she’s being inundated by it.
Sometimes I feel like a weird curse of having been through the ringer of disordered eating is having a sixth sense for detecting it in others. I try not to project or overanalyze, but it’s hard for me to not clock ED behaviors when I see them. This is made all the more complicated by the fact that a lot of ED behaviors are not only common but CELEBRATED! Skipping dessert? “Good for you!” a lot of people might say. It’s exhausting how normalized it all is. So I totally get what you’re going through, and it can be really difficult to know what to do, because you’re right, armchair diagnosing doesn’t really get us anywhere (and, in fact, if your friend really is struggling, a sudden armchair diagnosis could scare her off and make her more isolated in this struggle). I do think the best thing you can do, for now, is to maybe open up about your own past. I get why you’ve been hesitant to do so, but I think if there’s a way for you to organically bring it up outside of any conversation about food/fitness so that it doesn’t seem like a response to what she’s saying, it could open doors for further conversations. It also might be worth talking to other people who know her, if the right opportunity presents itself.
But that’s also asking a lot of you. If you’re not comfortable with that, I get it! I’m very selective about when and how I talk about it, too, though I find myself being much more open about it recently, which has had not only a good impact on my mental health personally but also has made it possible to have deeper, productive conversations with other people in my life who have struggled in their relationships with food, whether they realized it or not. I was scared to open up more for a while, but it has brought nothing but positive energy and conversations into my life.
So, say you don’t want to open up to her about your own history just yet. That’s alright! I’m curious how you’re responding to her in these moments in general since you don’t note that in your letter. Do you say nothing and just sort of freeze up? I would understand that, because that used to be me! Have you tried pushing back to no avail? If so, I’m sorry! That would feel frustrating, too. I do think there are ways to push back that don’t hinge on you needing to disclose your own history. Like the next time she talks about “earning” a latte, you can say something like: You know, I really try not to think of food/beverages as something that needs to be earned, and that mentality has been really beneficial. I think if people are going to normalize this way of talking about food and calories, then we gotta normalize pushing back on it. If she isn’t experiencing ANY resistance to her way of talking, she’s just going to keep descending into this way of thinking. That’s what I’ve noticed in these tennis circles I occupy: They all talk this way and no one is ever challenging them, so it just becomes this feedback loop. I’m one of the only ones pushing back on them, and I think it positions me as someone who is able to get through to them, even if it happens in small strokes.
Are you close with anyone else in her life who maybe has been noticing the way she’s been talking about food? Maybe you can talk to her together or also figure out if the situation is even worse than you realized.
This feels too meaty for an advice article and like something that would require a much deeper dive, but I think there needs to be some major narrative shifts in how we talk about disordered eating in general. And I think that would stand to benefit EVERYONE: you, me, people like your friend, and lots of people in between. It sucks, but one of the best things you can really do is try to have conversations with your friend, even if they start kind of small.
Wishing you both the best!
You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.
