There is no way you can tell if somebody has an eating disorder just by looking at them.

Yes it is true that often there are physical indicators, but they can be subtle and explained away by other causes. You can be overweight, a healthy weight or underweight and still have an eating disorder.

Contrary to what the media might have us believe, anorexia is actually the least common eating disorder, and it’s prevalence is dwarfed by binge eating disorder, bulimia and OSFED. As someone who has had anorexia and purging disorder at different times, I can confirm that only when anorexic did people really know what was going on straight away. And even then, some didn’t realise for a while.

And even anorexia can be hard to identify at times. Yes I was underweight. But I was actually functioning quite well for a period of time. I have always been on the smaller side so I didn’t have a huge amount to lose before I became underweight, and I truly believe that our perception of what a ‘normal’ body looks like has been so skewed by what we see in the media – we see underweight bodies every day in adverts and magazines and Instagram and have become conditioned to think they are okay. Our perception of people being underweight is that they must be completely emaciated, but the reality is that there is a way to go before reaching that point. It wasn’t until my weight got very low that the concern really ramped up, but I’d been struggling long before that. When I was struggling with purging disorder, I remained a stable weight, and it went completely undetected.

We need to stop thinking eating disorder = skeletal. Eating disorders come in all shapes and sizes and everybody, no matter what size, no matter what disorder, no matter what behaviours, deserves treatment.

Early intervention is essential to improved outcomes yet many services cannot offer it – weight and BMI are all too often considered key indicators of severity when this absolutely needs to stop.

Eating disorders do not have a size limit and you cannot assume somebody’s health by their outward appearance. They are illnesses of silence and thrive off secrecy. People need to feel safe to come out an admit their struggles without having their experiences undermined based on their BMI.

Just because people don’t ‘look sick’, it doesn’t mean they aren’t.