Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique. Duis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat. Aenean faucibus nibh et justo cursus id rutrum lorem imperdiet. Nunc ut sem vitae risus tristique posuere.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique. Duis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat. Aenean faucibus nibh et justo cursus id rutrum lorem imperdiet. Nunc ut sem vitae risus tristique posuere.
If you have a loved one in your life who’s queer or trans, it’s important to be supportive and respectful to them and willing to learn all the time, not just during Pride Month.
And if your loved one is also in recovery from an eating disorder, there may be some additional ways to show your support and be an ally.1,2,3,4,5
Using a person’s correct name and pronouns is a simple way to show a friend or family member you love and respect them. If you mess up, apologize without defensiveness, correct yourself, and move on. Making a big deal out of it can make the situation more tense than it has to be.
Actively seek out LGBTQIA+ and eating disorder learning resources and guides. It’s important not to put the onus on your loved one to educate you, as that can be emotionally exhausting and distressing. Familiarize yourself with the factors that increase the likelihood of LGBTQIA+ folks developing an eating disorder and barriers that make it harder for members of this community to access treatment.
If your loved one feels comfortable enough to approach you about something, receive them and their comments from a non-judgmental and compassionate place. Avoid getting defensive or avoiding accountability.
Never assume any person’s gender, pronouns, or sexuality. If you aren’t sure what terms to use for someone, ask respectfully. In the same way, you never want to make assumptions about your loved one’s eating disorder, how it affects them, and the nature of their recovery. It is also important not to make assumptions about what type of eating disorder a person has or how well they are doing in recovery based on their body size, shape, or weight.
The importance of being an ally lies in taking action to fight stigma, promote change, provide support, and speak out against oppression. This means speaking out when you hear people making offensive or ignorant comments. It means correcting others if they use the wrong name or pronouns for trans and nonbinary people. And it means being consistent in your support and allyship.
Nobody’s perfect. Everyone is going to have their own prejudices, even people within the LGBTQIA+ community, which is why it’s so important to assess and challenge your own biases, assumptions, and stereotyping behavior. Understand that members of the LGBTQIA+ community are not a monolith—it’s important to recognize that everyone is unique, with different backgrounds, challenges, opinions, and beyond.
Allyship is an ongoing learning and unlearning process. Along the way, you’ll likely make mistakes, whether that involves accidentally deadnaming someone or saying or doing something that could trigger your loved one’s disordered eating behaviors. Accept that you will slip up occasionally and focus on what you can control: how you apologize, respond, and move forward.
{{link-bank-two-column}}
Do your best not to use body–and appearance-related comments. Whether you are discussing a celebrity’s weight loss, a family member’s eating habits, or bringing up your own diet, these types of comments can trigger your family member or friend in recovery. Plus, emphasizing a person’s appearance and body promotes diet culture, anti-fat bias, body shaming, and weight stigma while devaluing who they are as a person.
If your loved one is trans, nonbinary, or gender expansive, you will also want to avoid making unsolicited comments about their body, appearance, medical history, or intentions for medical transitioning (e.g., will they take hormones?). Not only is this an invasion of privacy, but it also may draw attention to unwanted parts of the person’s body or communicate to them that they need to medically transition to be “trans enough.” Trans and nonbinary people often feel pressure to engage in eating disorder behaviors to make their bodies more closely conform to narrow gender ideals, so comments about their body and gender can be especially harmful. If your friend or family member brings these topics up with you, listen respectfully without giving your opinion and ask them what you can do to be supportive.
Diet culture has made many of us believe that certain foods are “good” or “clean” while other foods are “bad” or “toxic.” This dichotomy is not only an unhealthy way to view food, since food is fuel and provides us with life-giving energy, but it is also classist. It doesn’t take into account inequity and all of the systemic issues that contribute to it, such as transphobia, homophobia, anti-Blackness, racism, ableism, and more. There is also a pervasive problem with diet and wellness culture demonizing many cultural foods traditionally eaten by people of color.
Eating disorders, queerness, and transness are all extremely stigmatized in our society. Fighting mental health stigma involves educating yourself, speaking positively about seeking mental health treatment and support, being conscious of language, and advocating for access to care for both mental health and physical conditions. When you hear someone making toxic or stigmatizing jokes or comments about eating disorders or LGBTQIA+ identities, you must consistently speak out and correct people.
When you are having a get-together at your house, you’ll want to ask your loved one what foods they’d prefer and if any types of food may be triggering for them. You’ll also want to shut down any negative talk about portion sizes, food shaming, or dieting and encourage all of your guests to engage with food however works best for them. It’s also a good idea to ensure the focus of the gathering or meal is enjoying each other’s company rather than the food itself.
No one expects you to be a mind reader. When in doubt, ask your loved one what you can do to support, encourage, and empower them. This may change over time as they discover more about their needs and what does and doesn’t work for them. Be flexible and willing to take feedback.
There are many persisting myths about eating disorders that stigmatize these mental health conditions, with one of the major ones being that eating disorders are simply extreme versions of diets that can be started or stopped at any time. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Eating disorders, much like other mental health disorders like depression, bipolar disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), develop due to a combination of environmental and genetic influences. By understanding the complex nature of eating disorder development, progression, and recovery, you can offer compassion and kindness.
Along the same lines of avoiding body talk, you’ll also want to avoid talking about yourself in a negative manner. Criticizing your weight, size, shape, or eating behaviors can trigger your loved one to return to disordered eating behaviors. You may also find that you'll feel better about yourself when you cut out this harmful self-talk.
For many of us, even if we don’t have an eating disorder, our relationship with food has been negatively impacted by diet culture messaging encouraging restriction and glorifying the thin ideal. We may unconsciously feel we should be striving to eat less of certain foods or verbally justify our decision to eat a larger portion or food labeled “unhealthy.” Challenging these thoughts and behaviors can help improve our own relationships with food and allow us to create a safer and more supportive environment for those in our lives struggling with eating disorders.
HAES, which stands for Health at Every Size, is a public health approach that challenges weight-related assumptions, celebrates body diversity, and approaches health care without pathologizing weight or making assumptions about the relationship between weight and health.6 This approach can help you change how you speak about yourself and those around you and combat weight stigma and discrimination.
Never out your friend or family member without their explicit permission. This goes for their gender, sexuality, and eating disorder. Even if they trusted you enough to tell you, that doesn’t mean they feel the same way about others. Just like sexuality and gender are a spectrum, so is coming out. Some people may be out at work while others are not. Some may feel comfortable telling a group of strangers, while others may not. In these times, let your loved one lead the conversation, and you should follow their cues. You can also ask them what their comfort level is. Eating disorders are personal health information and may be a sensitive topic for many people because they are both stigmatized and sensationalized in the media. It’s important not to disclose that your loved one has an eating disorder or is in recovery to anyone else without their explicit permission.
If you are cisgender, heterosexual, or both, you hold a certain amount of privilege and power compared to queer and transgender people. A good ally recognizes their privilege that allows them to move through the world while facing less oppression and has access to opportunities and resources. Recognizing and owning your privilege helps you to contextualize the inequity of our society as well as the systemic issues that contribute to various mental illnesses, such as eating disorders.
Ultimately, being an ally involves acting in such a way that other people, namely LGBTQIA+ folks and those in eating disorder recovery, recognize your allyship and consider you a supportive friend or relative rather than you giving it to yourself. It’s less about being able to call yourself an ally and more about what your allyship does to help support queer and trans people, destigmatize eating disorders and queer and trans identities, and make our communities safer for marginalized people.
Disclaimer about "overeating": Within Health hesitatingly uses the word "overeating" because it is the term currently associated with this condition in society, however, we believe it inherently overlooks the various psychological aspects of this condition which are often interconnected with internalized diet culture, and a restrictive mindset about food. For the remainder of this piece, we will therefore be putting "overeating" in quotations to recognize that the diagnosis itself pathologizes behavior that is potentially hardwired and adaptive to a restrictive mindset.
Disclaimer about weight loss drugs: Within does not endorse the use of any weight loss drug or behavior and seeks to provide education on the insidious nature of diet culture. We understand the complex nature of disordered eating and eating disorders and strongly encourage anyone engaging in these behaviors to reach out for help as soon as possible. No statement should be taken as healthcare advice. All healthcare decisions should be made with your individual healthcare provider.
