Harmful Meme

This meme, is extremely harmful and destructive for many reasons. Although it might come across to some people as encouraging and highlighting high statistics for recovery, it’s truly a very dangerous choice of wording. Anorexia is a serious and deadly mental illness and has no place being made fun of or glorified in any way. Social pressure or stigma is actually one of the top triggers for relapse in the disorder. The tone of the meme suggests that by seeking out recovery, you are giving up on your dreams and your ability to have a perfect body, which is inaccurate and distasteful. Using the word “perfect” to describe a sick and unhealthy state of the body is immensely misleading and even someone who hasn’t ever struggled with anorexia could also be affected. No body will ever be perfect, especially not the thinner it is.

Recovery is not about physical appearance, it is much more complex than that because anorexia is a mental illness. People who suffer from it could be battling the psychological effects for a very long time even after recovery. Recovery is not easy and could very quickly be tossed aside because of media like this. Even if a victim of anorexia saw this and didn’t ponder relapse, they could instead feel invalidated, like all the effort they’ve put into recovering meant nothing. Do we really want to put out the message that by recovering, you’re abandoning goals or giving up? This meme in particular distorts the reality of recovering and gives the idea that it’s all about giving up on being perfect, instead of having a healthy relationship with food or a stronger sense of self worth.

The constant glorification of illnesses like anorexia in todays media is a huge problem. What people tend to forget is that this is a deadly disorder and it’s not just about looking thin. Coming from personal experience I can say that while memes like this may seem like nothing but an insensitive choice of wording, they really have the capacity to awaken unhealthy behaviors in seconds.  They make recovery even more difficult than it already is.

Healthy Meme

I reconstructed the topic of recovery in this new meme to highlight a positive of recovering instead of a negative. A huge positive when recovering from an eating disorder is being able to love food again and although it’s not easy, it’s definitely worth it. If the media showed more memes such as this one there might be more of an incentive for people struggling with anorexia to get the help they need and show them that there really is a light at the end of the tunnel. A better and more balanced life is possible. With social media algorithms constantly giving users what it is they want to see, the users could just be getting fed triggering content over and over again. People who are struggling to keep with their recovery are extremely vulnerable and if all they are seeing on their social media is glorified disorder content, then it’s going to increase setbacks in their health journey.

I think that there is a possibility that this healthier meme could have the same virality as the unhealthy one because in todays world we’ve come a long way with the body positivity movement. It’s been a global shift from what used to be a very selective and non-inclusive society. When you walk into a mall for example, a lot of the posters you’ll see will be showcasing a wide variety of body types. But if you walked into the same mall even just a decade ago, you wouldn’t see much variety all. Things such as that are what lead me to believe that healthier content surrounding topics, like anorexia, might start to outshine the negative content.

No body is perfect, food is good, and recovery is a hard, but powerful thing. Once we stop promoting otherwise, people might have a better shot at long-term recovery and happiness.