Hi friend,
I guess we need to talk about NEDA – the (American) National Eating Disorders Association – today.
Honestly, I was reluctant, because they've been a thorn in the side of fat people (especially fat people with eating disorders) for so long.
On the surface, the organization does good and life-saving work. They run a hotline! They have resources! They run Weight Stigma Awareness Week every year!
But.
NEDA has always been centered on and protective of their identity as the thin people's eating disorder organization, from the CEO and board on down.
Years ago, NEDA absorbed BEDA, another organization focused on binge eating disorder. To be clear, binge eating disorder, or BED, isn't the “fat people's eating disorder,” and binge eating doesn't necessarily make a person fat. (And fatness isn't the opposite of anorexia! And plenty of high-weight people have anorexia!)
At any rate, NEDA absorbed BEDA, which was a moderately fat-inclusive eating disorder org that was run by Chevese Turner and hosted Weight Stigma Awareness Week every year. NEDA took over Weight Stigma Awareness Week, turned it into a thin-only, no-fat-people-in-the-treehouse event, and fired Chevese when she advocated within the organization for fat inclusion more generally.
Fat people pitched a fit about all this on social media, and were met with harassment and abuse by NEDA's unofficial, but influential, group of parents who've lost thin young white women to eating disorders.
Did anyone listen to fat people talking about this? Nope.
More recently, NEDA has been in the news for a new CEO – more of the same – and for union-busting, replacing their helpline employees with an AI chatbot that promptly started giving people ED-enabling diet tips and was shut down.
Did anyone listen to fat people talking about these events? Nope.
Now, it's come out that Liz Thompson, NEDA's outgoing CEO, wrote at least one really vile letter to stakeholders calling fat activists a “small” but “loud” group who definitely weren't patients or personal friends of anyone involved.
Oh, and calling fat liberation insignificant and a fad; fat activists “awful," “destructive” attackers who “target” clinicians; and NEDA an organization that's not “getting into fads” like including fat people in ED treatment. They are, however, happy to make sure that “people with o*” receive treatment and care in treating our icky medical condition.
No one ever listens when fat people speak up, and this is how thin people are talking about us in the background. Every time.
You *have* to start believing us.
In the Quick Resources section this week, you'll find links to everything I mentioned above, plus other fat activists' commentary.
