Well this thread went a special direction.
Anyhow, having had a few people close to me go through ED, i’ve heard the same remarks that Ivy has made.
Through the lens of someone who’s gone through it, IF can look A LOT like the tools used by someone with an ED or related disorder. Excessive exercising also is a tool.
A tool can have many uses and can be used to build greatness but also to cause harm.
Two professors once told a class that if you ran 5 miles a day you might have an eating disorder. I objected and they backtracked. As a division 1 XC and track guy, everyone I knew was running 5-15 miles per day. Almost no one had an eating disorder.
The professors got caught up talking in real time and made a mistake. They’re talking about something (possibly) they don’t fully understand. Sure, they might have a prejudice. Or it might be a case that “everyone” with an eating disorder runs “excessively” but not everyone who runs excessively (5 miles a day?) has an eating disorder. Anyway, the professors knew they misspoke and acknowledged it. If you asked Ivy about it, I bet it would go the same way.
There are actual criteria for different eating disorders. The Diagnostic and Statistic Manual (DSM) is a symptom checklist and should not be the only way a diagnosis is made. It’s too reductionist. People like neat little checklists. Behind the DSM cookbook are theories and information that fill in the enormous foundation of that checklist and a real diagnosis should use that information, as well as information about the individual’s case. Symptoms are easy to talk about during conversation. Extended definitions that deal with meaning and a fully fleshed-out understanding of things based on our best information at the time…not so easy. Even a long-form podcast lends itself to the easier definitions that are manageable in discourse. It’s similar to teaching a class and why you tend to need books and articles in addition to the lectures; to unpack the rest of it.
Okay, that was too long. 10-4, over and out.