I try my best to understand how someone who does not struggle with anorexia might find it alluring, but please let me shatter that reality for you. I have struggled with anorexia for 11 years now. There is no glamour, no satisfaction, no perfect weight. There is only panic and self hate and horrendous fear of anything and everything you eat/don't eat. There are the thoughts about food that plague you day and night. They turn into dreams, you can't escape. There are the dinners with family or friends that tear everyone apart. You start to lose people, activities - your world shrinks. Then once the weight starts coming off you are exhausted and cold all of the time. You wake up in the middle of the night because your stomach is crying out and your calves are racked with spasms because at this point your body is feeding on muscle. Your brain is malnourished too and it plummets you into awful depression. You are on and off the scale 1, 5, 10 times a day. You can't go out with friends, go to school/work, heck you can't even get out of bed. At this point you end up in inpatient treatment (if you are lucky and have insurance). For some, this works. For most others, you come back again and again. I've spent more collective years in treatment centers than in college. Treatment is brutal, strict, unrelenting. They make you gain the weight back, and quickly. If you refuse, they drop a feeding tube. If you refuse that, they take you to court and get an order for said feeding tube and bed rest and drugs to subdue you in case you protest still. When you discharge from treatment, you have to make the difficult transition to eating in the real world. You start your recovery terrified of another relapse, knowing that the average length of time is takes to recover is SEVEN years.

Is this harsh? yes. Is this the truth? yes. So please let this shatter any shiny perception of what anorexia is or isn't. It's a mental illness. EDs are the most deadly of any mental illness in fact. Be kind to your body and mind by continuing to nourish yourself and consult professionals if there is a reason you need to lose weight.