ED Recovery Influencers/Vloggers

[Guest]

Following!

[Photosynthesis]

Love Rebecca Leung!

[treelee]

Curious what people think of recovery YTers in general. I tend to be critical of them all because in general past a certain point in recovery it's just not that healthy to make your whole existence about recovery (although I've seen plenty of people live this way). I don't follow a lot of them too closely because they tend to eventually piss me off, but I'd like to hear about some people enjoy. For example I tried watching Merryrose Howley maybe a year ago and her overall obsession with a super clean vegan diet while maintaining her status as "fully recovered" just pissed me off, but maybe she's matured/gotten better? All the comments that suggested maybe it was still disordered to be that stringent (like wanting to go fully raw vegan? wtf why?) she would always flip it back on the person saying they were just looking at her through the lens of their own disorder. Idk, back when I was more into recovery personas on the internet everyone was blogging and then on IG and pretty much all the ones that seemed to make a decent real recovery turned away from talking about recovery eventually. Biggest example coming to mind is LordStillLovesMe (Julia later Drops of Jules) who made a total 180 throughout her college years. When I followed her when she was still a high schooler she was still very food focused and generally somewhat narrow minded, but at some point in college she gave up blogging about recovery and then even gave up blogging near the end. She's still on IG and appears to be doing great now. Supportive towards those in the recovery community but pretty much has stepped away.

AND... tldr I guess the problem I have with recovery YTers (and bloggers, etc) is that it might be helpful in the very beginning to motivate you to break behaviors/find a community, but eventually recovery needs to become just a tiny portion of your life, and making your career totally or partially about it really prevents that. That's how we get Jen Brett vlogging her millionth granola bar about 3 years into recovery (she might have reframed the timeline, but I found her through recovery tags on IG back in 2015 when she was the anorexic turned shredded lifter girl).

[guruanne86]

I completely agreed with your point regarding a move beyond recovery advocacy after a certain stage in recovery! No matter how recovered they believe/promote themselves to be, constantly uploading videos and photos on the subject matter, as well as the continued self-analysis has the potential to just perpetuate the obsession with weight, food and exercise. Another trend I've noticed with these vloggers is the transition from recovery (food freedom, body acceptance)->gut problems that result in adoption of an overly restrictive diet. I understand the struggle of digestive issues, (from a personal standpoint) But this seems to me like just another means of controlling body and diet in an overly obsessive way...does anyone else perceive it this??
Case in point, Christie Swadling...she was preaching acceptance of weight gain and food enjoyment and freedom and had actually gotten to a place of looking really healthy until...enter gut problems, ensuing restrictive diet...and she has now lost a ton of weight and basically eats only produce and protein. While still waving the recovery flag and receiving support from her followers for 'listening to her body'...I don't know if I'm overanalyzing, but this whole situation just irks me for some reason, because so many impressionable followers look to these 'gurus' for direction and as an example for their own recovery.

[treelee]

I completely agreed with your point regarding a move beyond recovery advocacy after a certain stage in recovery! No matter how recovered they believe/promote themselves to be, constantly uploading videos and photos on the subject matter, as well as the continued self-analysis has the potential to just perpetuate the obsession with weight, food and exercise. Another trend I've noticed with these vloggers is the transition from recovery (food freedom, body acceptance)->gut problems that result in adoption of an overly restrictive diet. I understand the struggle of digestive issues, (from a personal standpoint) But this seems to me like just another means of controlling body and diet in an overly obsessive way...does anyone else perceive it this??
Case in point, Christie Swadling...she was preaching acceptance of weight gain and food enjoyment and freedom and had actually gotten to a place of looking really healthy until...enter gut problems, ensuing restrictive diet...and she has now lost a ton of weight and basically eats only produce and protein. While still waving the recovery flag and receiving support from her followers for 'listening to her body'...I don't know if I'm overanalyzing, but this whole situation just irks me for some reason, because so many impressionable followers look to these 'gurus' for direction and as an example for their own recovery.

I 100% agree. I get it, EDs kind of destroy your gut, but the only way you're going to be able to digest anything again is to actually just eat it so you have the right gut flora to handle it. A lot of gut issues are psychosomatic, especially for those with an ED. My dietician back in the day debunked many an intolerance. It was usually just extreme anxiety causing digestive distress. And the distress in turn creates anxiety around that food. And thus a vicious cycle is born. I'm also super skeptical of vegan recovery, because it's usually a pretty restrictive whole foods only diet (with just enough vegan junk to claim they have food freedom). I notice the focus is always around the healthy diet side, not so much the animal/environmental factor, which just shows me the true motivation.

[Guest]

Love Rebecca Leung!

Rebecca is awesome! She is so real about her recovery and doesn't hide her struggles. I remember in one of your Youtube videos she eats a bag of chips and is about to break down. But then she calms down and finishes the chips and moves on. Go Rebecca!

[Guest]

In response to never truly recovering if you're constantly talking about recovery, I think it's okay to continue focusing on it as long as it's not the only focus of your channel and you don't obsess over it every single day. But like you said, it doesn't mean you're 100% recovered. You just gradually stop thinking about it once you're entirely recovered from your ED.

What I really have to criticize about a lot of these YouTubers is that they decide to focus on fitness, health coaching, beauty, or fashion after being "recovered" or claim that one of them helped their recovery. Choosing a career or a SM topic that's so appearance and/or food-focused is not going to do any former ED patients or current ED patients any good because you'll end up obsessing over your image every day like you did when you had food and body image problems. It's not true recovery and you're only feeding into it through a different medium.

[OhCrumbs]

Whew, I have some major thoughts on this.
I should preface this by saying that I think the whole ED recovery vlog thing is really risky territory. I think most online ED communities are toxic on one level or another - our disorders just seem to turn it into a yucky combination of the flaunting of disordered habits & bodies, validation-seeking and damaging comparison. That being said, I think it is difficult to make videos on the topic that aren't really toxic and damaging - let alone actually helpful.

Probably the only people I can think of who actually manage it are MegsyRecovery, Rebecca Leung and Tabitha Farrar. I think all three of them do an amazing job of creating helpful, sensitive and informative videos. Love them!

MerryRose Howley has been mentioned - I really don't find her videos all that helpful in terms of ED recovery. I think she has improved a little bit over the last year or so but I remember about a year ago just cringing whilst watching her videos. Someone who appeared to be as underweight as she was giving advice on how to gain weight whilst tucking into a bowl of pureed bananas for breakfast and advocating a seriously restrictive vegan diet really irritated me. The way she seemed to flaunt her underweight body as much as possible seemed pretty insensitive, too..

Macy Eleni - I think she has good intentions with her videos. She seems to really make an effort to create content that isn't triggering or damaging. I find her overly problematic as such, I just don't find her all that inspiring. I don't think she is as recovered as she thinks she is, especially judging by her reaction to any comments about the fact that she still seems to eat in quite a restrictive way and might still have weight to gain.

Holly Gabrielle - Seems like a really sweet girl but I just get so uncomfortable whenever she makes content on ED recovery. I really don't think it's helpful for her followers (or herself) when she makes out that this is what being recovered from an ED looks like. Luckily she doesn't seem to me ED recovery content anymore.

Hat Will Beat This - I love her videos! I think she's taken a break but she creates really creative and quirky content.

StefMarie.Recovers/Stephanie Marie Frank - I can't even put my finger on it but this girl just really irritates me. It's probably just a personality thing but it kind of clouds over any benefit that I could possibly get from her videos. I think she's really only interested in becoming a ∼social media influencer∼ and getting all the associated perks rather than making content that will actually help anyone.

Ok, I should stop now before I get overly bitchy.

[sparda]

Probably the only people I can think of who actually manage it are MegsyRecovery, Rebecca Leung and Tabitha Farrar. I think all three of them do an amazing job of creating helpful, sensitive and informative videos. Love them!

Those are the exact same three I was about to say. They are great!

Megsy is lovely. She doesn't hide the fact that she's still overly fixated with food, but she pushes hard and is very relatable. Although the fact that she has never struggled with binging and her recovery has been seemingly super "clean" really triggers me, she makes me feel like my ED isn't real, but that's not her fault.

Rebecca is awesome. She actually eats a lot. I know I still have an ED because I would NEVER be able to eat as much as her on a daily basis (despite me being taller, younger and thinner than her but you know, ED). Also it's nice that she is so committed to full recovery and absolutely NO restriction even if she was never super underweight, at least judging from her photos, and even if she is seemingly at a very healthy weight now.

Tabitha Farrar is...well, she's just something else. Also because she's properly recovered and she's also very much on the older side. She does blurry videos without any kind of fancy music or exciting cuts and just speaks for minutes in front of the camera. She is very blunt and really doesn't give a shit, it's amazing. She is, sadly enough, what I was before my ED when it came to food and what I aim to return to be in the future. The only thing that bugs me is that she has somewhat bought into the HAES/Fat Acceptance bullshit, but that mostly stays in the background and she rarely talks about it.
What I appreciate the most about her is that she promotes the message that full recovery is possible. This is an actual inspiration! I am SO tired of those recovery influencers telling you the usual crap that 'oh, EDs never really go away, you just learn to manage them'. Like what the fuck? You are basically telling me that I will always have a messed up relationship with food and will always feel like shit, I will just put some weight on. Why should I even bother trying to recover, lol.

Stephanie Marie...I don't know, maybe she's too young and bubbly and talkative, I can't really relate to her. Macy Eleni is such a stereotypical valley girl it hurts and I can't make myself watch her. And all the others are just meh. I once used to watch Hanne Arts but then she went vegan and I immediately stopped caring.

[treelee]

I'm apparently very out of the loop on recovery vloggers, although I'll admit I rarely seek them out but they occasionally pop up in my feed so I've seen maybe half these names. I haven't really sought out recovery/ED YTers since 2010-2012 though and they all have tiny/non existent followings if they're even still on YT. For the few who are still on YT and post anything, it is interesting to see where they're at now and see how different and more whole they are.

[orangesocks]

Can we talk about Mik Zazon? (Mostly on IG these days though she also has a youtube channel.) About 2 days into her recovery she started shilling one of those "I help other women love themselves" programs. Haven't been able to take her seriously since

[Iridescence_65]

Jen Betty drives me nuts. She's so overkill with her recovery. She's an extremist with her weight. She was anorexic and now she's being bigger and bigger and has no balance at all. Eat all the sushi and love yourself blah blah blah

[treelee]

Can we talk about Mik Zazon? (Mostly on IG these days though she also has a youtube channel.) About 2 days into her recovery she started shilling one of those "I help other women love themselves" programs. Haven't been able to take her seriously since

Oh god I hate her. She’s basically pulling the mastermind crap but instead of preying on “entrepreneurs” she’s preying in vulnerable (probably mostly young women) people who would do anything to get out of their bad relationship with themselves and food, which is unforgivable. In my opinion if some deeply sick girl drops dead because she wasn’t sent on to a real doctor and some fitspos advice couldn’t cure her (or even hurt her further) mik should be held accountable. Because if that girl had landed in any real sort of treatment she would have been screened.

[sae08]

Speaking from my experience, talking to yourself and thinking about recovery does help to break some barriers sometimes or calm yourself when you feel super guilty about not exercising/eating too much etc so I do believe that starting a recovery channel is not a bad idea if you just started your journey with beating an ED, so you can share your struggles and talk about what you've learned so far. Also, some people might get interested in this topic and despite being recovered still want to help others and make videos about it, but I wish these people were more educated and made sure they are recovered themselves before helping others.
I feel like there are 2 types of recovery influencers: one still has semi-ED mindset, looks sick, orthorexic, eats restrictively and struggles to find her way to a balanced lifestyle (like Christie for example) and the other one will be overweight, eat whatever she wants, preach "BoDy PoSiTiViTy" (as much as I agree with the idea the "gurus" especially on instagram are completely messed up and missed the point) and gets offended at every word related to health, losing body weight and fitness. Basically everything is the fault of "DIET CULTURE!!!" and brings up eating disorders as a sensitive point to justify her shoveling her mouth with junk food and not caring about wellness. This is ridiculous

[commentsandwine]

Can we talk about Mik Zazon? (Mostly on IG these days though she also has a youtube channel.) About 2 days into her recovery she started shilling one of those "I help other women love themselves" programs. Haven't been able to take her seriously since

She also can’t stop tagging aerie.

[lokiofasgard]

A total newbie here, though I have been reading several topics for a while.

Any thoughts on Alice Olivia and this girl Ladle by Ladle?

[sparda]

Meh. Boring, repetitive and too close to HAES and other kinds of antiscientific nonsense for me to like them. Plus their voices are annoying.

[Guest]

[video][/video]

Call me petty or whatever, but am I the only one who thought Tyler was a bit aggressive to Rebecca in this video? He's usually very supportive about her eating disorder and is one of the best partners anyone with an ED should have. But here he's literally forcing her to eat every two hours and food that isn't good at all like airplane food and hot cheetos. At the very least he should have allowed her to eat something she would have enjoyed because she hates spicy food. The guy can't even afford to let her have regular cheetos? It HAS to be flamin' hot cheetos otherwise she's a failure? Bruh.

[Guest]

^ don't have anything to say about Tyler but I will say that Rebecca looked amazing in that video as well as the picture she posted today. I wonder how she looks so athletic even though she doesn't exercise. I know she exercised a ton growing up so maybe she just has a good muscle base. Or it could be genetics. I knew a girl like her (who also recovered from an ED!) who always looked pretty lean and defined even when she went through periods of not exercising. I love Rebecca so no hate, I just am super jealous of her figure lol

[i_cannot_even]

[video][/video]

Call me petty or whatever, but am I the only one who thought Tyler was a bit aggressive to Rebecca in this video? He's usually very supportive about her eating disorder and is one of the best partners anyone with an ED should have. But here he's literally forcing her to eat every two hours and food that isn't good at all like airplane food and hot cheetos. At the very least he should have allowed her to eat something she would have enjoyed because she hates spicy food. The guy can't even afford to let her have regular cheetos? It HAS to be flamin' hot cheetos otherwise she's a failure? Bruh.

Ugh I agree. The way he said "you're about to eat like a normal person" while ordering a cookie skillet and a milkshake made me feel uncomfortable