What Does It Mean to Say Eating Disorders Are a Choice?

Recently, we posted these two statements on our Instagram page.

Both are intended to provoke and stimulate debate.

If you suffer from an ED or know someone with disordered eating one of these will generate a reaction in you. 

What does it mean to say ED’s are a choice? 

From my own experience, no one foisted an ED upon me. 

The only person haranguing me was me! 

Of course, it didn’t feel like it at the time. I felt powerless and out of control as if I’d been taken over by something else, like an addiction. I was an addict. Addicted to ED behaviours and thinking but very much the creator of this strange chaotic world I’d chosen to inhabit. I chose every time I restricted, binged or purged. 

But, it didn’t feel like a choice. It felt like an overwhelming need and compulsion. 

Not acting out my behaviours meant I would have to feel the emotions I was desperately trying to suppress but it was unthinkable not to react. If you’d asked me back then if I had a choice I would’ve said no. 

But still, within it all, I chose over and over again. And later I chose to get well. 

When I talk about choosing, it’s not so we can berate or judge or point the finger, it's so we can empower, embolden and be uplifted. Because when you’re in a situation where you feel powerless and out of control it helps to be reminded that fundamentally, you are in charge. 

You are in charge even when it doesn’t feel like it. 

You can choose to feel what it might be like to be the boss for a second and then another until you reach a minute and more. 

Telling yourself you won’t eat today? Choose to eat.

Deciding to binge and purge? Decide not to. Even if it’s a delay - choose.

Want to throw up? Sit with it. Sit with the horrible discomfort for longer than normal and see what happens.

And so on. You get to choose. Some choices will be easier than others. Every time you choose differently you’re breaking patterns.

The debate around conscious and unconscious choice is vast. Some people believe that everything is a choice that we even choose our parents and much more. I might be one of those people but that doesn’t mean you have to be.   

I’ve never forgotten a true story I read about a POW who was kept in a small cage for three years on the side of a cliff. He absolutely chose to remain sane. He made that decision. 

Choose wisely.

I know this debate is complex and challenging 

If you still feel you’re without choice recognise this lack as a choice too – see, you’re in the driving seat after all. 

Be good to yourself. 

Especially when things are difficult.