Or is the competitive under eating on mumsnet harmful?

[foreverlobsters]

Full disclaimer- I have a history of eating disorders myself so am possibly over sensitive to this.

Have been reading through another currently active thread as well as what we eat in a day etc (which I occasionally post on and do find interesting). Why do people feel the need to post about their extremely low calorie days on here, or give potentially harmful advice? What's the incentive exactly- and are these people lying about how much they really eat or is most of the mumsnet population in an extreme calorie deficit? Do these people not see how selfish and damaging these posts can be?

@NewYearNewTwatName

you are very self congratulating,

Yay, go me! 👏

yet at the same time missing the bigger picture.

Oh, I, um, see....And that would be that you are right albeit with the same opinion as me but you still know more than me, just because.... you're you.

As I said we are actually on the same page, but you seem blind to the overall effect on many women who are less as enlightened as you.

Why thank you for that acknowledgment (re. enlightenment. I'll take it) But no, I'm not blind. If you reread my posts you see I acknowledge this however also acknowledge competing needs and triggers. The nuance is so tricksy to get across. In other words you can't please all of the people all of the time. Most of them don't actually want to be pleased.

The threads need more input from average eaters to help with balance. but many are put off, I've posted the reasons already.

Who is this average person? You see, I actually don't believe they truly exist. People on here tend to recognise 'average' to be people like them. Everyone has a different perception of average, a different tribe they align to.

We could could have a discussion on how best to achieve the goal of how to make these threads less about competitive under eating and more about the difference in bodies and the effects of different foods to different people.

Happy to.

And I would say, really? We must burn different amounts of calories

Coming back because I wonder how this would go down on the currently running snack thread😂

@Annoyedanddissapointed how do you think it'd go? Only one way for you to find out!

I think it varies hugely how much people can eat to maintain a healthy weight. I'm only 4'11 and 30 year old. I'm a size 8-10 and weigh around 7 stone which is a healthy weight for my height and a size I'm not comfortable going above, I'm also very very active and work out nearly every day as well as doing a lot of walking but if I eat more than 1200ish I gain weight quite rapidly. I've also had bulimia for 16 years so my metabolism is probably a bit buggered, as is my stomach so I can't deal with large amounts of food or heavy carbs.

I don't find the food threads triggering for the same reasons as you OP but it does upset me to see people casually talking about eating dead animals so I avoid these threads and if a thread I'm reading starts to bother me for whatever reason then I just stop reading.

@BeenAsFarAsMercyAndGrand

My GP has told me that the 1200 I was following is actually the max for me as a menopausal woman and I should be looking to reduce that…. 🤷‍♀️

This is complete bullshit advice. I know lots of active menopausal and post-menopausal women who climb/run/bike regularly, maintain a healthy weight, maintain good levels of muscle, and eat a lot more than 1200 calories a day.

Maybe those women are taller than the poster and they're obviously more active.

But that poster didn't say her GP had said 1200 calories was the maximum for her personally (which might have been true if she was small/sedentary). She said that her GP had said it was the maximum for a menopausal woman. Which is utter bollocks.

Although her post is a bit ambiguous, maybe others read it differently to me.

My GP has told me that the 1200 I was following is actually the max for me as a menopausal woman and I should be looking to reduce that….

Seems pretty clear her GP said 1200 was the max for her. If you climb/run/bike regularly it may be more - but why would the GP advise on a mythical woman rather than their actual patient?

I think there is an equal amount of posters horrified by the consumption of any carbs and sugar and posters who love listing the huge amounts of junk they eat, so for me they balance out.

I really don't think it is something you can police on Mumsnet and as with all things food related it comes down to personal responsibility. You are responsible for the food you put in your mouth, you are responsible for the threads you read. People need to own ther personal choices to achieve self-actualisation in any part of their lives.

I ageee. Eating disorders numbers have exploded amongst tedms.My dd has been hospitalised 6 times and looking at a 7th. We’re struggling to get 500- 600 regularly into her let alone the 3 meals snd 3 snacks she should be eating as stated repeatedly by doctors. I could cry when I see some of the rubbish on here. These girls are on Mumsnet. They Google and MN threads come up.

Teens

I would bet money on it that there are more teens with eating disorders triggered by Instagram, filters and love island than the Mumsnet dieting threads(no matter which part of the site they appear.) Best thing you can do for a teen is engage them in hobbies and limit the time they spend on social media.

What you propose is unmanageable. How can Mumsnet police the threads? It's perfectly acceptable for someone who is clinically obese to fast using a 500 calorie limit twice a week. Are we going to have to update our bmis in our profiles every month?

Eating disorders are about control a lot of the time. Yes, you can limit outside influences like pro ana sites, but often the root cause needs to be addressed first before healing can begin.

I will start by saying that I have an eating disorder which I manage, usually reasonably well these days but it’s not easy.
I see far more competitive overeating threads then under-eating ones and to me that reflects society with far more overweight people than underweight. Calorie limits are very individual but the comments on here show how unaware many people are about what the actually need. 1200 calories is fine for many if balanced and very normal but that problem is that often it’s comprised of empty calories or just junk with little nutrition.

I am half Asian and my mum and her mum are Asian and pretty much never eat more than that and often far less but this is usually with a lot of vegetables and a small amount of protein and some starch as filler. Portion size is small by uk standards. We have always been a healthy weight and never had any weight related health concerns.
What annoys me more than come competitive over/under eating is the spouting of these magic calorie numbers by people to justify what they eat, it’s meaningless. Or why do some seem to want to boast at how much junk they eat, it make me feel ill.

that doesn't mean that other vulnerable people with present and historic eating disorders should be subject to damaging and disturbing posts that wouldn't be amiss on a pro ana site

But these are very very few and far between and you are not subjected to it, you’re going looking for it, no one forces you to come on mumsnet and read every post about food. Which you must be doing to be able to find these extreme posts as they are not common.

I’ve only read a couple of pages of this thread but I’m now getting adverts for clean eating and Noom

The fact of the matter is, they are and will be damaging to some people regardless of how you feel about it. Teens especially will search for and look on sites like this. It's not necessarily triggering, it's putting forward one sense of reality (or what the 'right' way to diet is) On Mumsnet that appears to be 1200 calories. For some people that might be dangerously low. If you self publish anywhere (especially online) you are personally responsible for what you say. It's a really interesting post and I'm not sure what I think the answer is

@Ozgirl75

I’ve only read a couple of pages of this thread but I’m now getting adverts for clean eating and Noom

😂

If you self publish anywhere (especially online) you are personally responsible for what you say. It's

Equally, you are responsible for the content you choose to look for or seek out.

People aren't going to stop sharing diet tips just because other people might abuse them.
I'm not willing to stay fat so you can have the luxury of not ever seeing a view that you could use to abuse your body.

And on the flip side, I'd say that people who make claims that they can eat lots of calories + carbohydrates could leave someone with a different metabolism feeling inadequate or guilty if they eat that much and put on weight. Don't forget that eating disorders can involve binging and purging cycles too

Ultimately, it is down to individuals, like all advice on the internet to seek out what is best for them.

I don't mean that they shouldn't do it, just that their words will have an impact on others. In this case it may be a negative one. You can't (and absolutely shouldn't) stop freedom of speech though.

So, what I mean is, in answer to the original question, yes it is harmful. But that's the nature of the internet! We can only police ourselves, you are right.

In terms of self policing, I think it is important to be wary of coming across and incredulous or judgemental over someone else's diet/health and fitness regime. Questions are good, admitting if something is outside your experience, perfectly acceptable. We just need to remember it is very difficult to get the full picture from a few posts.

I mean even last night I was reading about tightness or weakness in the psoas muscle in the lower back being a cause of a protruding stomach, digestion, back and hip issues. So much can affect the way we look /weight and health. It really is not simple.

Yes, I also think we can't just blame the internet for eating disorders. Anorexia was a social contagion in the 90s and most people didn't have internet access.

Lots of things will contribute to one developing: personal trauma, home environment, media, internet and peer group all play their part.
But it's not possible to ban all those things, is it? Personally I think the media could do with some kind of healthy range of bodies quota, but it's not going to happen.

I think there is also a problem of pigeon holing people into an 'undeserving' sick bracket in much the same way as people are pigeon holed into an 'undeserving poor' bracket. In this way 'disorder' is brandished almost as an insult.

Yes, there is personal responsibility in terms of the ability to respond. However even the scientific community cannot agree on metabolic issues people so an ordinary person whose field specialism does not include metabolism can surely be forgiven for getting it wrong.

Other people's experiences, if they align on some points can be helpful or comforting to hear. It's the judgement when someone ventures to share their own which hurts. Either that or people judge themselves when everyone seems to have a very different experience from their own. This can in turn into judgement of anyone they perceive as different from them, as if they need people to be the same in order to validate their own action. Being different is seen as a walking criticism. We just need to keep on remembering how diverse humanity is.

There’s literally a thread right now (and to be honest there’s one every other week) about how nobody should snack. Not ‘people should have healthy food’ but people (all people) don’t need to snack at all.

That’s the type of thing. Like constant judging what others are/aren’t eating, and then a crowd of people who will either leap to post ‘my mil gave 2 month old nephew a full croissant and a box of brownies every day for a snack’ or the obligatory ‘well I’m 6ft and weigh 8 stone and I think…’

I do agree that people need to be responsibly for not opening threads with material they might find triggering, but there is an unhealthy attitude on a lot of food threads. You can see it by how people immediately feel the need to list everything they’ve eaten that day even on threads that aren’t asking what they’ve eaten.

@Kanaloa

There’s literally a thread right now (and to be honest there’s one every other week) about how nobody should snack. Not ‘people should have healthy food’ but people (all people) don’t need to snack at all.

That’s the type of thing. Like constant judging what others are/aren’t eating, and then a crowd of people who will either leap to post ‘my mil gave 2 month old nephew a full croissant and a box of brownies every day for a snack’ or the obligatory ‘well I’m 6ft and weigh 8 stone and I think…’

I do agree that people need to be responsibly for not opening threads with material they might find triggering, but there is an unhealthy attitude on a lot of food threads. You can see it by how people immediately feel the need to list everything they’ve eaten that day even on threads that aren’t asking what they’ve eaten.

This is actually what lots of us were talking about. The judgment. "Gasp, how can you eat more than 100g of chicken breast? No wonder there is an obesity crisis"

No one really has a problem with normal discussion, it's this types of posts which are very... Yeah, not great.