Podcast Transcript

Episode 44: Becoming the Person He Needed: Eating Disorder Recovery and Advocacy with William Hornby

[Bouncy theme music plays.]

Sam: Hey, I’m Sam.

Ashley: Hi, I’m Ashley and you’re listening to All Bodies. All Foods. presented by The Renfrew Center for Eating Disorders. We want to create a space for all bodies to come together authentically and purposefully to discuss various areas that impact us on a cultural and relational level.

Sam: We believe that all bodies and all foods are welcome. We would love for you to join us on this journey. Let’s learn together.

Sam: When you think of someone who has an eating disorder, what image immediately comes to mind? For most people, it’s a young, thin, white, teenage girl. And this long-standing stereotype has been around for ages. But the reality is that eating disorders can affect anyone, including people of all genders. It’s estimated that 10 million men will experience an eating disorder at some point in their lifetime. And there are certain men at higher risk than others. Men who experience pressures from all different angles. For example, there’s mounting evidence that sexual and gender minorities are at elevated risk of developing not only eating disorders, but also body dissatisfaction compared to CIS-HED populations. Even so, men of all ages continue to be underrepresented in the research, and it’s hard to know if these stats are even accurate. They could be so much higher than we even realize. We need to talk more about men and eating disorders, which is why we invited William Hornby to the show. We’re so lucky to share the space with him today. William Hornby is at the forefront of raising awareness for men with eating disorders with his advocacy on TikTok and Instagram reels @WilliamHornby, where he has amassed over 400,000 followers combined. He works very closely with the major eating disorder nonprofits, the National Alliance for Eating Disorders, Project HEAL, and the Eating Disorders Coalition. He also creates content for Within Health and ERC. He was awarded the William Donald Schaeffer Helping People Award by the State of Maryland in 2021. He holds a BFA in musical theater and a BBA in business management from Temple University. William has given his keynote speech, “The Power of Becoming The Advocate You Needed”, at universities throughout the country and virtually throughout the world. It is his wish to encourage those who have gone through something they felt unsupported in to be the advocate they themselves once needed, just like he did. He is also a recording artist. Stream his song, Clay, on Spotify. A pumpkin carver, an actor, a singer, a dancer, and an avid consumer of LGBTQ literature and media. Welcome to the show, William.

William: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

Sam: We are so excited to have you here. I have to say that we started this podcast a few years ago, right, Ashley?

Ashley: Yeah.

Sam: And when we started this podcast, you are one of the first people I thought of to have on the show.

William: Really?

Sam: Really! Yes. I have been following your content.

William: You should have reached out then. (laughter)

Sam: So true, yes. I wish I would have reached out earlier, but…

William: It’s okay, that bio is more impressive because you didn’t.

Sam: Yes, the bio has grown since then. I am thrilled to have you because I’ve been watching your skits and your content. I’ve been following along. And I just love what you’re doing for the eating disorder community, not only for folks who are struggling, but for professionals too. I think your content is so educational and wonderful. So maybe we can start with a little, you know, what’s it called? What’s the trend online, how it started, how it’s going?

William: Oh, Lord.

Sam: Yeah, I would love to hear your story. You know, how did you end up here?

William: So essentially, I grew up in rural Maryland and I moved to Baltimore City when I was 13 to attend Baltimore School for the Arts High School. And I studied classical voice there, so I was singing opera, and it was really wonderful. And after that, I went to Philadelphia to study musical theater and business at Temple University. And I was there for five years. Throughout that time in my young adult life, or really my… adolescent and young adult life, I developed an eating disorder that took many shapes and many forms throughout the years. And at points, it was more stereotypical for what you would think an eating disorder would be. We shouldn’t have stereotypes for what eating disorders are but there was a point where I truly believe that if I had been a woman or a girl, experiencing the symptoms I was experiencing, that it would have been flagged. But it wasn’t. And there are plenty of other points in my undiagnosed, untreated eating disorder experience that I probably would not have been flagged, even if I were a girl or a woman. Um, and I think that that’s important to name. I’m diagnosed with, um, OSFED, other specified feeding or eating disorders. Um, and I’m not, I can’t say with confidence that I would have been diagnosed with anything other than that at any point. And, um, obviously like that is a newer diagnosis that many in the medical field aren’t even aware of to this day. Um, but, uh, I can say that my symptoms through OSFED were probably more recognizable as an eating disorder than they were at other points based on stereotypes and that lack of treatment was largely because of my sex and gender. And that’s just how that is. And so I got diagnosed with an eating disorder in summer of 2019 when I went to a dietician because I had decided to start eating vegetarian. I claimed it was for the environment and I truly believe that was my intention but the way it manifested was as more of a continued form of restriction on the kind of food that I was eating. And I went to a dietician, and I was like, hey, I think I’m eating vegetarian wrong. And she was like, hey, I think you’re doing a lot of things wrong. I’m going to send you to a therapist who I insist that you meet with if you’re going to meet with me. And I’m still with that therapist to this day. I love her very dearly. She diagnosed me with an eating disorder. And there was a lot of other stuff that I needed to work through before we could really, really truly get to my eating disorder. Um, but, uh, it kind of became a thing of like this needs to be addressed. Um, so I, uh, I reached back out to my dietician after having ghosted her as you do when you’re mentally ill. Um, and, um, I, uh, I was about to study abroad in Rome. And she was like, go study abroad in Rome. Just try to focus on enjoying the food culture over there. Try to enjoy for what it’s worth, like everything that experience has to offer. And she was like, it might help you with your eating disorder to be in that different environment, honestly. And to be honest, it did. Because I was just so excited to be in a new place with, you know, some of the most amazing food in the world. And just kind of like gave myself that kind of like unconditional permission to enjoy it while I was there. But I was studying abroad in spring of 2020, which is when the world ended. And here we are in the aftermath. And so, when I got sent home from Europe, I very quickly fell back into just about everything that I had been dealing with before. And I kind of sat down and was like, I should really address my eating disorder now that there is really nothing else going on in the world that I can possibly pay attention to. So, I got in touch with my dietician as I had planned to. And my dietician and my therapist really worked with me very hard that summer remotely to work towards recovery. And then honestly, I think I veered towards orthorexia on my way out of everything, I think that, you know, there’s a lot of power and knowledge and also you can know far too much. And I think something that a lot of people with orthorexia deal with. It’s something that a lot of people who are in recovery kind of veer into before they kind of like really get into a solid place in recovery. And so, I really, I believe I dealt with that towards the beginning of when I started doing eating disorder recovery advocacy. And fortunately, that never really showed through in my advocacy. And also I was at the very end of that when I started doing recovery advocacy online. But one of the hardest things for me when I started recovery was that I couldn’t find any men who were talking about having eating disorders. And that was an isolating experience for me. I had asked my therapist, I had asked my dietician, like, can you please look for resources for men because I can’t find any and it’s making me miserable. It’s making me feel very alone. I truly believe that community is a very important part of recovery.

Sam: Yeah, absolutely.

William: And I obviously knew men who had eating disorders. And I knew of some men who were in recovery but had not disclosed that to me personally. So, I was in a situation where, as an actor in musical theater school, almost every guy I knew was dealing with something related to food and body image. And I knew of a few that were in recovery, but they hadn’t disclosed that to me. I’d heard it through a friend of a friend. So, I didn’t feel comfortable reaching out to them about it and didn’t know how to breach the subject with them. So it was really like a thing that I ended up feeling very alone in working through. And while I do believe that there is a lot of, there’s a lot to relate to amongst all people who have eating disorders, like they’re pretty universal experiences in some ways that supersede gender. I think that also the experience of growing up socialized as a woman in society does lead to eating disorder development and body image issues in very different ways. from those who are socialized as men. And that those experiences are not always the most helpful to share between each other as forms of like, I was looking for validation that I actually had an eating disorder as a man. And what I’d often hear from my friends who were women was that they had experienced eating disorders in ways that were portrayed in the media and that I was used to hearing in middle school health class. That made me feel like mine was less relevant, or less worthy of diagnosis, less worthy of resources, less worthy of treatment. And that was not their fault at all. Like they were just, you know, sharing their experience and they were helping me by doing so. But it was isolating to not have a men’s perspective on eating disorder recovery. So that’s really what led to me deciding to start to do that recovery advocacy. And when I started to do it, it blew up really, really fast. And I was like, okay, so I’m studying business and musical theater. I am not in school to become a dietitian or a therapist. I really need to make sure that I’m really well-informed on these things because I don’t want to be misleading anyone. I don’t want to put out harm into the world in any way if I can avoid it. So, I immediately started doing a bunch of research and reading a lot of work from dieticians, from therapists, from psychiatrists, reading a lot of work from the fat activist sector, fat literature, fat activism is very, very important in eating disorder recovery. I’m sure we’ll talk more about that later. And really the way that there are double standards for gender when it comes to talking about these things and lots of different topics that I did not see represented in the advocacy that I was consuming. There were also things that I’d look at online and be like, oh, I don’t think that is helpful for XYZ reasons, so I’m going to make sure that I don’t incorporate that in my advocacy. And like, oh, that was triggering to me when I was looking for resources in advocacy, so I’m going to make sure that I don’t do that thing or I couldn’t find this thing. And I really would have helped if I’d known this. And so that’s really what I started to focus my advocacy on. And it just grew and grew and grew. And I got to the end of college and I was really like, I don’t know, I don’t know exactly what I’m doing in this moment, because I wasn’t sure if I was going to return to theater or not, post pandemic. I’ve since decided that it is an art form I still like, arguably love, and have a much better relationship with now. But I was definitely like, I don’t want to try to enter the industry right out of college. And I really didn’t know what I was going to do. I worked at a wonderful restaurant in Philadelphia called the Victor Café, where I sang opera and bus tables. Very fun.

Ashley: Oh, wow. Yeah.

William: And then Joanna Kandel, the CEO of the National Alliance for Eating Disorders invited me to their World Eating Disorder Advocacy Dinner. And that is where I kind of, my career as an advocate really took off. I made a lot of connections at that dinner that really changed my life. And I became really well acquainted with a lot of people that I had looked up to for a long time. And it really led to a career in this, not just posting videos online, but working with all of these different eating disorder organizations for-profit and nonprofit. I love the work that I do. It is genuinely my pride and joy.

Sam: I mean, William, you found all of these gaps in advocacy work. You thought about what you needed when you were struggling, and you filled that gap yourself. I mean, that’s incredible.

Ashley: Yeah.

Sam: What you’re doing is so important. And I’m so happy to have you on the show to, you know, spread your message. you know, even further. I was just curious, William, I know one of the things you said was what you needed most was validation. What was it like when your therapist said, you have an eating disorder?

William: Well, I didn’t believe her.

Sam: Yeah?

William: I don’t know. I mean, like, I think that a lot of people will go out of their way. to not believe that they’re sick with XYZ mental illness. I also believe that the brain, the sick brain, actively tries to convince you that you are not sick because the illness does not want you to get better. Sort of doesn’t want you to get better. Your anxiety doesn’t want you to address your anxiety. I think that actually one of the best portrayals of this, is on Big Mouth on Netflix. I’m not sure if either of you have watched that show. It’s a really, really stupid little comedy show about kids going through puberty. But at the end of, I want to say the fourth season maybe, and I might have that wrong, sorry to any Big Mouth enthusiasts. They have all these representations of things like anxiety and depression. Like the, the anxiety is a mosquito, and the depression is this big furry, like Persian cat that’s humongous and lays on top of you in bed and like, once you to, to not leave and, um, there are all of these, uh, there’s like the shame wizard, which is this ghost that goes around and like makes you experience shame. And, um, I think that portrayal of the way these entities talk to you and convince you that they’re not a problem, convince you that they’re your ally, they’re your friend, is really clever and very helpful for conceptualizing all of these things. And so, I did not believe that I genuinely had an eating disorder when she told me I did. I mean, part of me was like, yeah, that’s probably true. But part of me was also like, no, of course not. I, for a long time, did a lot of videos that were like, if your anxiety is made up, like, then why are you having an anxious experience in your bedroom alone? Who are you making that up for then, you know?

Sam: Great point. Great question.

William: If you’re crying for attention, why are you crying in your bedroom alone?

Sam: Yeah, yeah. Thought experiment, right?

William: Yeah, I mean, that to me is how you work through mental illness, through thought experiments. I think that being able to label something as irrational is a really good first step to not letting it have as much control over you. If you’re able to look at the panic you’re experiencing and like know that this is not being caused by anything rational, then you are able to take away some of the power of the panic and be able to actually come out of it. And so, I think that like, our mental illness encourages us to be irrational and that we learn how to be rational through therapy if we’re fortunate enough to have access to it, through treatment if we’re fortunate enough to have access to it, and through online resources and advocacy if we don’t have access to other things. And that’s why I think it’s important that advocacy is engaged in responsibly and that education is, you know, provided with care.

Ashley: So, you mentioned at the very beginning, William, that you were diagnosed in 2019.

William: Yes.

Ashley: And I’m curious how long prior to that you may be experienced these symptoms.

William: I developed an eating disorder around the time I was 11 years old. So, it went undiagnosed for about eight years.

Ashley: And so, thinking about like the cleverness of the mental (inaudible)… well, I’m like that probably set in stone even so much more of these mixed messages coming from the anxiety, the mixed messages coming from the eating disorder. If you went eight years with it being undiagnosed, I can only imagine how challenging it was then to finally hear. And I’m just, I just really am curious how many other people have maybe experienced something similar, right?

William: Oh, tons. We have all of these statistics, right? And like, I really appreciate that as you were saying them in the beginning, that you mentioned that we really don’t know whether they’re accurate because they’re probably a lot higher. Because ultimately a lot data that we have on things like this is self-reported. And if people are going through a period of denial, they are not going to be self-reporting, yeah, I think I have an eating disorder. Or like, yeah, I struggle with eating food. People are, I think, more likely to disclose those things under the cloak of anonymity, but like, I don’t think that they, I don’t think these numbers we have are accurate. I know so many people who struggle with food, struggle with their body image, um, that, uh, are not diagnosed with anything at all. Um, but definitely experience it in ways that hinder their quality of life significantly and probably do have the kind of experience that would warrant a diagnosis if they were to go in front of a professional. And obviously I am not an eating disorder professional who is, you know, granted the kind of certifications you need to be able to diagnose someone. So, I’m not going to sit here and armchair diagnose people. Sorry, I’m not going to sit here and armchair diagnose people. But I will always encourage people to consider reaching out to a professional if they are experiencing anything that could be adjacent to an eating disorder. And the Alliance actually is running a helpline now. It’s the same helpline that NEDA used to have. So, if you see that number listed anywhere, you should still call it. It is, thankfully, and due to the Alliance’s hard work, still operating. And it is operating with licensed therapists on the other line, ready to talk to you and try to get you in front of resources that are accessible to you based on your needs, including a variety of support groups. So, yeah.

Sam/Ashley: That’s wonderful. Thanks for sharing that.

Ashley: Okay, so I want to jump into your Instagram, TikTok, YouTube videos, all of those that you share. So like one of the, which are so lovely, by the way when Sam was just mentioning how she had wanted you on here for years and I feel so, I kind of feel like I’m geeking out a little bit. Like I feel so excited that I’m sitting across from you right now. So, I just, I would ask like one of the things that you do on your socials channels is you kind of have this dialogue between the eating disorder voice and the recovery voice. And, and they’re really fascinating., I’ve watched your Instagram reels quite a bit. And so, they’re so helpful because those are literally dialogues that we know that people are having internally, you know, in their heads.

Sam: And with like family members or friends sometimes.

Ashley: True. It could also be externally as well. So, I’m curious, like, how did you get the idea for that? And what is one of your favorite reels that you go to? You know, like what is one of the favorite dialogues that you’ve had and created?

William: Oh, they’re all so special. And so, I got to that format, I think mainly because it felt like the most effective way to flesh out conversations. I think often when I would say certain things that I found very helpful. Like a lot of times that message would land on people in a way that was very helpful for them. But other times there would be people constantly asking, follow up questions or trying to pick apart every single little word that I said and turn it into something that it wasn’t. And so that eating disorder voice is informed by my own experience with my own eating disorder voice, obviously. I think it’s obvious to us. I’m not sure if it’s obvious to everyone, but it is certainly obvious to those of us who have, you know, dealt with eating disorders or worked with people with eating disorders. But it is also a result of a lot of the comments I’ve gotten on many videos. It is always a little shocking to me how openly people comment about their, or really comment their sick thoughts on social media posts. There is, I think, a lot of lack of regard for what could be triggering when people are commenting things. I think also because a lot of people are commenting from anonymized accounts that they kind of see it as not having any repercussions or any ties as an identity, you know? So, like not even just talking about things that are harmful, but just like there are certain things that people will say that I’m like, I can’t imagine saying that in the comment section. Um, like it just, it just, it seems very personal to say that very publicly. And I am a pretty private person. Um, I don’t like for people to know where I am or what I’m doing really. Um, and that has, that has grown, I think as a result of having a presence on social media. I am very concerned with people not really knowing like the names of my family members, and like who my partner is really, you know, like if you dig deep, you can find it, but like it’s not super readily accessible. And I like that. And I think that that’s important for me. I like that you don’t know when I’m on vacation. That’s the reason I film everything in front of a blank wall. That doesn’t work for everyone, but it does work for me. I like to travel, and I don’t want people to know where I am or that I’m traveling. I traveled a lot this summer and you’d never know based on my Instagram. And I like that. And I want to keep it that way, you know? And so the way that this ties in is that earlier on in my journey with social media, there was kind of this constant like, you have to get really personal, you have to get really personal, blah, blah. And I never felt really comfortable with that. And when I was working towards getting people to listen to my music inspired by eating disorder recovery, I was working with a really, really lovely person who was telling me that if I wanted to promote my music, like I had to make things more personal on my social media. And that just never really sat right with me because I, I think that there’s a lot of, there can be a lot of damage in personal details being disclosed. Um, it can be very triggering for people. And that’s not something that I want to expose people to. And that was a constant conversation that we were having when I was going through figuring out how to advertise that, right? And the way that I kind of arrived at this basically exclusively doing this kind of like person A, person B kind of dialogue between the eating disorder voice and a more rational, more informed voice is that I can do it without ever really talking about me personally. A lot of times people will think that it’s something that happened to me personally, but, and sometimes it is. But I go out of my way to make sure that you don’t really know. Because I don’t, I don’t need you to know it’s, it’s a, it’s a more universal experience that I’m trying to portray that is a tool for you to work through these thoughts when they come up for you. To deal with these comments that come up, whether it’s on social media or in real life, to deal with them for you. I am demonstrating behavior. I’m demonstrating a controlled, ideal response. Hopefully more understanding than people are in real life. You know, I am also condensing a conversation that might take place over the course of an hour into 90 seconds.

Ashley: True.

Willian: I’ll get, I’ll get comments from people who hate me. Often, just period. But I’ll get comments from people who hate me who are like, wish he would debate someone other than himself. Of course, he wins all these arguments because he’s just debating himself. And it’s like, yes, I’m not going to waste your time by debating someone who doesn’t have information on eating disorder recovery and is just going to like run my name through the mud over things like, you know, I’ll get told that because I’m like pro fat liberation that I’m encouraging people to kill themselves. And like I just don’t think that that’s true. I would argue that doing eating disorder recovery content and just about everything I’ve ever put out encourages people to save their lives. And so, like I I’m not willing to sit there and be berated by some random person who is not going to have a productive conversation, but I know that I can condense their talking points and talk through why they might be believing X Z and help people who are hearing what those people are saying, work through why that might not be an accurate or at the very least kind way to go about thinking of about these things, you know?

Ashley: Yeah. I was just going to say, I think like your voice in general, labeling these various experiences, like thinking about young William that maybe didn’t have this, like, oh, how much would that have validated you, you know, and been so helpful?

William: I hope it would have. I try to make the content that would have spoken to me. Yeah. And I’m just very grateful that it helps other people through their recoveries as well. I wouldn’t do it otherwise. It is genuinely not for the weak of heart.

Sam: Yes, certainly not. Certainly not.

William: It is a lot of criticism all the time. from a lot of people. And it is heartbreaking and hard and something I work through in therapy and something that I would not subject anyone to. That’s why when I am responding to people or if I use a comment in a video, I always anonymize the comment. I never use the reply to comment feature because I never want anyone to experience what I experience on a daily basis. Like not even my worst enemy do I want experiencing that because it like online harassment is just the worst thing in the world. So, I mean, they’re obviously worst things in the world but like it is a really crushing thing to deal with.

Sam: It is. I mean, it’s clear how much you care, how passionate you are, given how hard it is to do this work that you push through and do it anyway. I mean, which brings me to my next question. You know, we’re talking a lot about how social media can be such a hard place to exist. And there’s lots of research around the links between social media and disordered eating and body image issues. And I’m wondering what guidance you might have for folks who find themselves experiencing negative outcomes from whether they’re content creators or they’re just sort of online using social media. Is there a way that you take care of yourself? How do you set limits around it? Yeah, how do you cope?

William: I mean, if you’re doing it as a career, I recommend at least for a period of time looking at like, using the tax write off of like getting an extra phone to like, look at like that’s where you have your social media. You turn it off at the end of the day.

Sam: That’s brilliant.

William: I mean, you have to have the resources to do that and like an income to like, have it be a tax write off. But like, if you can in any way have an extra phone, a look at social media on that is an extremely worthwhile thing to do. Um, it really, I did that at one point. It really helped me heal my relationship with social media. Um, I no longer really need that second phone to control how I’m, I’m monitoring things, um, and it, it trained me to be able to do it, um, which was, which was good, but again, you know, like that’s, if you can afford that kind of resource, do that. If you can’t, as most people can’t, I understand that recommendation is not for you. I also think that setting the time limits on your social media can be really stupid. It doesn’t work for a lot of people. You can supersede it. So, I recommend like looking for more offline activities, like whether it’s sitting down socially with someone and watching TV, or if it’s like, reading a book on your own or going on a hike, listening to a podcast or what you know, there’s so many things that you can do that are not looking at social media. And also, I want to recognize that like, doom scrolling is something that all of us partake in whether we like it or not. And it is a valid coping mechanism that is arguably less harmful than a lot of other coping mechanisms that a lot of people use to unwind from a hard day at work or a hard day at school. And I would recommend looking at things that are maybe more predictable, I guess. Like your For You page is extremely unpredictable in terms of what it’s going to deliver you. So, like logging off can be very good if you’re showing up in ways that encourage people in any way to comment on you. I think it’s also important to recognize that not everyone gets the same kind of treatment when they show up in an online space. Fat people get treated very differently than thin people when they show up in an online space. If you are black or indigenous or a person of color and you show up online, you’re getting very different treatment from a person who is white. You are unfortunately being opened up to, and I wouldn’t say opening yourself up to, I’d say being opened up to by virtue of, this is a public. And unfortunately, the public has all of these biases and violences they perpetuate. That like, these places can feel unsafe. And I think that if you’re brave enough to deal with that, that’s really amazing. But also like, it’s hard to, and I’m sorry that you do. And the best thing you can do, honestly, is log off for a time. Um, or like find a way to not have social media take up so much of your life because it, it is a very real space that we all exist in. I know that a lot of people will say, oh, well, you know, it’s not actually real life. It is. It’s real life. People say things on social media that they would never say to you in person, but like it is a space that our minds exist in. It is a space that we exist in.

Ashley: And you’re affected by what people say.

William: It is totally okay. Or like it is a valid response to be affected by what people say. And also, there is another realm we all exist in outside of it. And, um, spending time in what can be a less triggering realm, i.e. maybe being cuddle up in bed with a book, can be better for you. Not to like more, I’m really like cautious about moralizing activities because I don’t think that’s helpful a lot of the time. But like, I think that social media can be a really hard place to exist. And that it’s okay to limit how much you exist in that place. Even if you’re trying to grow as a content creator, mind you, like if that’s like a thing that you are doing and you’re like, oh, I have to be posting all the time so that I build my audience and blah, blah. Like ultimately it is much better that you do not burn out. Don’t feel like posting, don’t post. And like, if you don’t feel like posting for a long time, that’s okay. I took a four-month break at one point. Came back, it was fine. And also, if you never feel like posting again, you don’t have to. And that’s also okay. Go on with your life.

Ashley: Okay, William. We are running out of time.

Sam: Noo!

William: I’m sorry, I am so wordy.

Ashley: Oh, it’s okay.

William: I talk on run-on sentences.  

Ashley: I like totally to want to talk to you for hours.

Sam: Same. Same.

Ashley: So, a couple of questions to end up the show. Yeah, we know that there are likely still men out there struggling in silence, not only men, other, you know, others, of course. But what would you say to somebody, what do you want them to hear from this episode, from you right here, right now? And then what are some of your favorite resources to share?

William: Yeah, sure. So, I think that I want any person listening to this to come away with, life is better in recovery. There’s so much more joy to be found outside of worrying about what you’re eating next and worrying about how you’re going to exercise in response to it or how you’re going to do XYZ in response to it. It takes up so much of your mental space. It takes up so much of your life. And it is a worthwhile goal to have it take up less of your life. Ideally, none of your life. But, you know, we live in a world where everything is on a spectrum and thoughts will creep up. And things are more than a binary sense of success and failure. I’d say be very forgiving of yourself. Be gentle with yourself. Know that existing in this world is hard. It is not easy to show up every single day as a fat person, as a black person, as a gay person who is clockable as gay in society. And it is especially hard to show up as a fat, black, gay person, or as a woman, or as a fat, black, gay woman, you know? Like, the more you put these identities on top of each other as they intersect, the harder it can be to show up in society because of all of the ways that society might make your life awful. And so I would say that like society kind of mandates eating disorders for a lot of people. Like if you find yourself falling susceptible to that mandate, that is not your fault. And this is not a morally wrong thing to struggle. And also, it is worthwhile for yourself to try to find the space where you were able to recognize that as irrational and unfair. Like it is one thing to show up in the world as fat and be told that you don’t deserve to eat, for example, but it is another to show up in the world as fat and be told that you don’t deserve to eat and know that you do. And that is an unfortunately radical thing to believe, but it is true. And so like, it’s tough out there, I’m sorry, and it shouldn’t be. And also, you deserve better. And you deserve to know that you deserve better. As for resources, the Alliance’s helpline, I highly recommend. If you’re looking for eating disorder informed providers, they have a website called findedhelp.com, where a lot of eating disorder informed providers list themselves, obviously still check into people. If a therapist or dietician or provider does not sit right with you, or is invalidating your experiences, there’s a good chance that they’re not the right fit for you. And you can obviously make the decision of like whether it is worth it to continue to seek services from that person or continue to go to that support group or whatever, based on your experience, based on your access to resources. That is a cost benefit analysis you have to perform unfortunately. But hopefully you will be able to find someone there if you have the resources. There are a lot of organizations that have free support groups. The Alliance is one of them. I believe MEDA also has, M-E-D-A, not META, the Facebook company. MEDA has free support groups. And there are also other… free support groups led by clinicians. Out there, if you search for them, I’m sure if you reach out to Renfrew, they’ll be able to help direct you as well to resources. I also highly recommend reading the work of De’Shawn Harrison, Caleb Luna, Aubrey Gordon, Mikey Mercedes, and many, many others. There are… I really can’t emphasize how important fat liberationist work is when we’re talking about eating disorders, because while not all eating disorders are a result of anti-fatness, they all exist in an anti-fat world. And whether we have an eating disorder or not, we all have a responsibility to combat any form of oppression. And so, we all have a responsibility to be informed about anti-fatness. So even if you’re listening to this and you for some reason are listening to an eating disorder podcast and have no relation to eating disorders, I’d recommend looking at fat liberationist work. But especially if you are in the eating disorder field or you are dealing with an eating disorder, it is really important to acknowledge your anti-fat biases and how they are probably making your life worse. And not just your life worse, but the lives of everyone else around you worse.

Sam: William, how can our audience connect with you, see all your great content? Where can we send them? You can send them to my out-of-date website currently, williamhornby.com, which will hopefully be more in-date soon. They can also check out my Instagram and TikTok, which is once again at @WilliamHornby. I have music on Spotify and on YouTube and other streaming platforms if you’re all interested in that. I’m grateful to you if you are. And if you are in college or in high school or honestly if you have any kind of swing in your business’s DEI presentation agenda, I gave a presentation called “The Power of Becoming the Advocate You Needed” that is applicable to just about any setting you can imagine. And I would love to come speak at your school or business or entity. So please reach out and you can reach out at [email protected]  

Ashley: Thank you so much, William. We are going to end this here, and I wanted to thank our listeners for sticking with us on this episode. I really hope you all enjoyed it. And William, just be expecting episode number two where we discuss your pumpkin carving because I can’t wait to talk about that.

William: I am down to come anytime you want.

Sam: We need a sequel for that.

Ashley: I know, we do. Thank you so much, William.

William: Thank you so much.

Ashley: Thank you for listening with us today on All Bodies. All Foods. presented by the Renfrew Center for Eating Disorders.

Sam: We’re looking forward to you joining us next time as we continue these conversations.

[Bouncy theme music plays.]