'Eating Disorder Recovery’? Or Just Another Eating Disorder

Social media is full of “eating disorder recovery” transformations.

What we see first: a visibly malnourished body followed by a stronger, more athletic-looking body. The message is one of recovery — I went from weak to strong, from restricting to sport.

For many people, that transformation represents a genuine and hard-won recovery. This isn’t about taking away from those people.

But there is a less visible side to these stories that we should be cautious about.

Because an eating disorder doesn’t always disappear when the body changes. Sometimes, the behaviours and beliefs simply change form.

Someone can move away from severe restriction and still have a highly problematic relationship with food, exercise and their body. The goal may shift from “I need to be thinner” to “I need to be leaner or more muscular.”

In some cases, restriction can morph into cycles of binge eating and/or compensatory behaviours such as fasting or excessive exercise. Eating-disorder symptoms can change over time, and some people experience crossover between diagnoses.

This can be particularly difficult to recognise in athletes.

Sports environments can make eating-disorder behaviours look like healthy dedication. Compulsive exercise can look like ‘commitment’. Constant body monitoring can look like ‘optimisation’.

The litmus test is what function do these behaviours serve and how flexible the person can be.

Are they able to rest without guilt?

Can they eat more when they’re hungry?

Can they take an unplanned day off training?

Can they eat foods they previously feared without compensating?

Can their body change without it feeling like a personal failure?

These questions may tell us far more about recovery than a before-and-after Instagram post.

However, it can be incredibly difficult to question your own recovery.

Imagine having spent years fighting an eating disorder like anorexia, telling yourself and the people around you that you are finally better, posting about it maybe. Perhaps you have worked extraordinarily hard to restore your health, returned to sport and built an identity around being “strong” and recovered.

To then consider the possibility that some of the same underlying fears, rules or preoccupation may still be there — just wearing different clothes — that requires enormous honesty, resilience and courage.

It can mean looking closely again at something you desperately want to believe is behind you.

That isn’t failure.

And it certainly doesn’t mean that everything you’ve achieved wasn’t real.

It may simply mean having the bravery to ask: “Have I actually become freer, or have I just put myself into a different cage?”

Recovery can involve becoming stronger, returning to sport and feeling comfortable in your body.

But it can also look much less impressive on social media:

Eating without calculating.

Resting without guilt.

Being flexible around food.

Not compensating for what you’ve eaten.

Allowing your body to change.

And no longer needing to constantly monitor or improve it.

Recovery is not necessarily about achieving a different body. True recovery is about having a different relationship with your body, one that is less rule-bound and flexible enough to foster a better quality of life holistically.