Yesterday, 27th April 2024, I had the honour of speaking at the #DumpTheScales march in London. For those who couldn’t attend (or hear over the helicopter above our heads), here is my speech.
I lived with an eating disorder for over 40 years, mostly binge eating disorder, or BED. I think I first binged around 1980, when I was just a kid at primary school. It was so long ago, that bulimia nervosa had only just been recognised. Many of you here today weren’t even born.
I was just a chubby kid who hated herself, hated her body, coping with the things happening in my life in the only way I’d found that worked. I mean, I knew it was wrong, because eating too much was bad, and so I was deeply ashamed, too. So I kept it secret, and tried my best to compensate by skipping meals.
What followed was 30 plus years in a constant binge-restrict cycle, with purging added for good measure in my 20s and early 30s. And weight cycling, constant weight cycling. I wanted to be thin so badly. Because if I were thin, I wouldn’t hate myself. I’d be worthy. Worthy of what, I’m not sure. Love, perhaps? But I would definitely be a better person. Otherwise, why would I get constant messaging from my mother, doctor, the media, that thin equals good?
Of course that wasn’t the reality. It was the eating disorder talking. In reality I felt constantly self conscious in a thinner body, and hated myself so much I struggled to leave the house when I was bigger.
So I asked doctors for help, and what did I get? Weight loss advice. Something way too common for people with BED, people in bigger bodies with any ED, and even CHILDREN with ED.
And then, in 2013, a miracle happened. With BED now in the DSM 5, I was finally diagnosed and referred for NHS treatment. I stopped restricting, developed a chronic illness, had a few relapses, and I gained weight.
Now, 10 years on, I’m in pretty much full recovery. My weight is stable. I don’t think constantly about food. I don’t hate myself or my body any more. But I’m still surrounded by the same messaging. In the media, government strategies, at every health appointment. Even my own mother asked me “Now you’ve recovered, you can lose the weight, right?”
And meanwhile people all over the country are being turned away by eating disorder services, and prescribed weight loss to treat their eating disorders. Because some GPs still don’t understand how they work. And because there’s so little funding that sometimes only the very thinnest get care, and even that care is limited before people are written off.
The system isn’t just failing to treat eating disorders, it’s perpetuating them. The system, stereotypes about ED, and society’s views about weight, are part of the problem.
And that’s why I believe it’s time to DUMP THE SCALES. Because everyone, of every size, with an eating disorder, deserves the best possible care.
For more information on the Dump The Scales campaign and march, follow Hope Virgo on Instagram and X and #DumpThe Scales
Leave a Reply