I was a hardcore vegan for the animals - eco warrior for 10 years. before hitting burnout. It wasn't just the food, I wore or purchased no leather or wool, and only used cruelty-free toiletries and cosmetics. I was taking my own grocery bags to the store when no one else was - at least not where I lived.

My physical health was fine , however, in hindsight it was all a bit crazy-making.

Back in the day, and this still exists today, there is a lot of pressure on ethical vegans to be good representatives for the cause. This means remaining thin. Although the animals don't really give a toss if you're fat or thin, just that you're not eating them. There remains a lot of fat phobia within the vegan movement also lot of omnivores would just not take a fat vegan or vegetarian seriously So it it was often preached especially by the strictly vegan for health types, that we were doing a disservice to the animals if we allowed ourselves to get fat. Despite having gone vegan for the animals it was pretty easy for this little bipolar person, to get caught up in a lot of disordered eating practices in order to appear the "good vegan" ...not too thin, not too fat. For years I was caught in exercise bullimia and a never ending restrict/ binge cycle.

Going vegan for animals is great, but doing it for "health reasons" or in other words chasing thin and getting sucked into that healthism/diet culture aspect can be dangerous territory for people with mental illness and a history or disordered eating. And many vegans who are in it strictly for the animals can get sucked into this aspect as well.

Same with the eco-warrior approach, this can quickly become a crazy-making, obsessed/religiousity for those of us with mental health issues - it did for me.


TL;DR ... in my experience, folks with mental illness should tread very carefully when restricting what they eat, regardless of the reasons behind it.