Justice

Anorexia Survivor Uses Haters Own Words Against Them

March 3rd 2017

Saturday marks the last day of Eating Disorder Awareness Week, which makes anorexia survivor Megan Jayne Crabbe's viral Instagram post even more important.

Crabbe, who runs an Instagram page about body positivity, is fully transparent with her followers about her time suffering from anorexia. On Jan. 29, she posted a before-and-after photo that showed her in the midst of her eating disorder juxtaposed with how she looks now:

"I've gained mental freedom," she wrote in the photo's caption. "I've gained self love." She then urged her followers to avoid the dangers she did, writing, "weight loss does not cure self hatred. Mental health matters more than a dress size does."

While the overall response to her post was positive, there were some users who wrote negative comments about Crabbe's current body.

However, rather than deleting her account, Crabbe decided to do something even better: she posted another before-and-after, this time using every negative comment in the caption along with her thoughtful response to the hate.

Here were some of the comments she decided to call out in her Feb. 26 post, which has over 122,000 likes:

  • "So Wait so you just decided to RUIN your body?" wrote one user. To which, she responded by writing, "Nah, I just stopped torturing myself every day for not fitting an image I was never supposed to be."
  • "You could have stayed the same and loved your body, you didn't need to get fat," another user wrote. Crabbe's response: "I could have stayed the same and spiralled back into the eating disorder that almost killed me when I was 15. I could have kept starving myself and obsessively working out for hours everyday but it never would have lead me to self love."
  • "But surely you can't be happy looking like that now, I could never be happy in that body," someone else wrote. To which, Crabbe replied by writing, "I didn't think I could either, but as it turns out, happiness isn't a size."

National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) marks Feb. 26 to March 4 as NEDAwareness Week to "shine the spotlight on eating disorders and put life-saving resources into the hands of those in need."

NEDA estimates "30 million Americans will struggle with an eating disorder at some point in their lives."

What people may not realize is according to the National Institute of Mental health, the "most fatal mental disorder" is anorexia, with a mortality rate that is estimated at 10 percent, and is more common among woman than men, making Crabbe's post not only empowering, but potentially life-saving.

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